


Mac and Charlie: Gay Babies

by charliekellysupportgroup



Category: It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Genre: Canon-typical ableism/transphobia, Dennis is a self harmer, Drug Use, High School AU, M/M, everyone is awful except Charlie bc i love him, mentions of csa, not super shippy but lots of kissing and teenage horniness, trans!Charlie Kelly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2020-02-08 14:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charliekellysupportgroup/pseuds/charliekellysupportgroup
Summary: So far, public high school has not been great for Mac and Charlie. Between mean teachers, meaner classmates, and the lack of the strict religious structure provided by Catholic school (okay, that’s really just Mac’s problem), the year is not going well.Then one day, while skipping class in the bathroom, the two come across Dennis Reynolds-a complete asshole who might somehow have an even worse life than them.





	1. Chapter 1

Mac liked to consider Charlie and himself unlikely heroes.

The pair had transferred to public school at the beginning of the year, having gone to Catholic school for their entire elementary and middle school careers. Mac’s mother had transferred him after she got tired of the whole religion thing as well as the somewhat ridiculous tuition (to be clear, Mac was still very much into the whole religion thing). Charlie’s mother, on the other hand, had had to transfer her son to a public high school because it had a better special needs program. Which was kind of important, considering Charlie could barely read or write and refused to sit in chairs most of the time (the floor was much more comfortable-it gave him space to move around) along with several other things that would make a private high school absolutely hell for him. Of course, now that he was officially classed as “special needs”, Charlie had become even more of a target than he had been in middle school, and Mac, being his only friend, went down with him. It was a miracle when both of them managed to go the whole day without getting shoved into a wall or kicked to the floor. Even on good days, they were pelted with the usual array of high school insults ranging from your standard “nerd” and “idiot” to oddly specific insults (“your fathers never loved you, that’s why they left!”) to the typical assortment of offensive slurs. The halls were a practical war zone.

But Mac swore that one day he and Charlie would win that war. One day, they’d come up with some cunning plan to unleash plague-ridden rats amongst their fellow schoolchildren, or something to that effect.

“You know, public school’s not all bad,” Mac said to Charlie one morning as the two sat on the floor of a bathroom stall in order to avoid the ravenous crowd of school bullies waiting for them in the halls. “At least you don’t have to keep borrowing my uniforms.”

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie replied, tugging at his zipper absentmindedly. “Actually, my mom started buying me boys’ uniforms when I came out to her. I just liked wearing your clothes.”

“So you’re telling me you could’ve been wearing your own pants since third grade, but you just… liked mine better?”

“They were cozy! Had that already-worn-in feel, not like the new uniforms that were all starchy and hard.”

“Dude, they were the exact same uniforms.”

“Well, maybe after you wore ‘em for a year and then gave ‘em to me they softened up a little. Plus they smelled like your house, which I liked.”

“My house smells like cigarette smoke. It still does. Did you just like the smell of cigarette smoke?”

“Maybe.”

They were cut off by the bell ringing, but neither felt like going to class. Sitting out the day in the bathroom had become a tradition of theirs. Neither liked to go to class anyway, because Mac found teachers annoying and Charlie thought all the disability aids were mean (which they probably were, Mac had seen one hit a kid at one point), so they hid out in the bathroom and waited it out.

“So, you’re still into the bible and all that shit?” Charlie asked, twirling his drawstring in his hand as he stared up at the yellowing ceiling of the bathroom.

“Uh, yeah, dude,” Mac replied. “I still wanna go to heaven, even if I’m not in Catholic school anymore.”

“I don’t think reading a book is gonna get you into heaven, dude.”

“You’re just saying that because you can’t read.”

“I can read! Kind of!”

“You couldn’t even read the word ‘bible’ after nine years of Catholic school.”

“It’s a hard word! Plus, do you really think those old guys who wrote the bible knew everything?”

“‘Those old guys’ were the interpreters of God’s word, man.”

“Still. They were just old guys. God’s probably an old guy.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a smart old guy!”

Charlie nodded, making only brief eye contact with Mac before moving his gaze to the tiled floor.

“What’s the bible say about me being in the men’s room?” he asked.

“I mean, I don’t think bathrooms were invented when the bible was written, so… probably nothing? If you’re asking what it says about you being trans-”

“See? Told you those old guys don’t know everything.”

“What, so you expect them to see into the future?”

“I thought that was what prophets did.”

“Not always! Sometimes they just… interpret God’s word, okay? And that’s good enough.”

“Whatever, dude.”

Charlie reached into his backpack and pulled out a glass bottle with a plastic lid. He twisted the lid off and held the bottle under his nose, inhaling deeply.

“Oh, come on, is that glue?” Mac exclaimed.

“Stole it from the art room,” Charlie explained. “Want some?”

“What kind is it?”

“The good stuff, I think. They’re doing some kind of wood sculpture and they gotta glue it together with this shit.”

“Strong stuff, then.”

“God, yeah.” Charlie inhaled again, letting out a small cough as the glue fumes entered his lungs.

“You gotta stop huffing glue, man. It’s not good for you.”

“What’s the bible say about glue?”

“Well… that also wasn’t invented yet, so-”

“See? It’s bullshit. Now I’m gonna keep on huffing this glue, and your religion isn’t gonna save me.”

“Why glue, man?”

“It’s everywhere. Easy to get. Plus, like, one of Santa’s elves gave it to me for Christmas when I was little.”

“Yeah, I remember, I told you that was a child predator.”

“I never saw him again. If he wanted to diddle me he would’ve come back.”

“Still. Doesn’t mean you needed to start huffing glue.”

“It’s good though. Makes me forget stuff. Stop feeling stuff.”

Mac didn’t reply to that. He’d heard that statement from Charlie many, many times: that there was something he needed to forget, feelings he needed to get away from. Mac thought he knew what was plaguing his best friend-the fatherlessness, the bullying, the whole mess that was his sexual identity. But there seemed to be something else there. Something even worse, so bad Charlie wouldn’t even open up about it to his best friend.

“Is that glue?” some unseen person who had just entered the bathroom called out.

Charlie practically leapt off the bathroom floor, knocking Mac off the toilet in the process. The crash alerted whoever had just joined them, and they were promptly greeted by a face peeking under the stall door.

“You know, you can’t just sit in here all day. Actual handicapped people might need to use this stall.”

“Well, technically, one of us is handicapped,” Mac shot back from his current position, folded awkwardly between the toilet and the stall partition.

“I’m not handicapped, I have a learning disability,” Charlie grumbled.

“Dude, that’s the same thing.”

“What the hell do you know about this?” Charlie yelled. Then, looking back under the stall door, he muttered, “I think that’s Dennis Reynolds.”

“Is he still watching us?” Mac asked, trying to dislodge himself from behind the toilet.

“No, man. But whoever it is has got these tiny-ass designer shoes.”

“What?”

“Yeah, dude, he looks like a wealthy preschooler in those things.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“I didn’t get a good look at his face, but… his dad’s loaded. And he’s got a twin sister, whose feet are like… huge. So the feet-shrinking genes must’ve all gone to him.”

“That’s not at all how genes work, but how’d you know his dad’s loaded?”

“My class schedule consists mostly of sitting in the back of your classes and tracing the alphabet. I’ve got a lot of down time.”

“Are you purposefully not learning to read because you want to use your class time to spy on people?”

“Maybe. Kind of. I’m trying, okay? It’s just… really hard.”

“I believe in you, buddy. Just maybe stop spying on people.”

“Are you two gonna stop arguing about my feet, or are you gonna give me some of that damn glue?” the guy who was presumably Dennis Reynolds called out.

“Get your own glue, baby feet!” Charlie yelled.

“No, wait,” Dennis said. He stood in front of the door, the pointed toes of his designer shoes close enough that Charlie could’ve touched them. “You’re right, my dad’s rich. I can pay you.”

“Alright, now we’re talking.” Charlie considered just telling him that there was glue in the art room and to go get it himself, but he wasn’t going to miss an opportunity for easy cash.

“How much do you have?”

“Brand new bottle. It’s like… the size of my fist.”

“You got small hands?”

Charlie swallowed, looking down briefly at his hand. It _was_ small. Small hands grossed him out. He stopped looking at his own hand.

“I… I got the same size hands as you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’ve seen your hands, Dennis.”

“Fine. I’ll give you fifty.”

“A hundred.”

“Alright, whatever.”

Mac raised his eyebrows as if to say _you’re not really charging this guy a hundred dollars for that tiny bottle of glue_ , but a deal was a deal. Charlie began opening the door to make the trade, but Dennis slammed it shut in his face.

“Just slide it under the door,” Dennis insisted.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I don’t want you to see me.”

“Well, I know who you are. So unless you’re not who you say you are, then there’s something weird about how you look. Either way I’m not selling you this glue ‘til I know what you’re hiding.”

“Then you’re not selling that glue, I guess.”

“You were about to drop a hundred dollars on it. You need it, man. I can hear it in your voice.”

“You can’t even read.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

Charlie rammed himself into the stall door again. Dennis was surprisingly strong, but he was no match for Charlie’s full body weight slamming against the door, and he quickly toppled over. Charlie stared at Dennis, who was currently sprawled on his back on the floor, staring up at him in bewilderment. His eyes were sunken, and he still had braces, but plenty of high school kids looked like that. There was nothing he’d need to hide.

“Oh, fuck,” Mac whispered from his position behind Charlie. He’d escaped from the toilet, and was now staring at Dennis in shock.

“What?” Charlie asked.

“His arms, dude.”

Charlie looked at Dennis again. He was wearing a button-up, and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing his mutilated forearms. They were a collage of white and pink stripes, but Charlie’s eyes were drawn to the bright red lines near his wrists. Blood was smeared around them, and a few still oozed red drops.

“You come across that in your little spying adventure?” Mac asked.

“Relax, man. He probably has a skin disease. Just don’t touch him.”

“It’s not contagious, dumbass,” Dennis grumbled. He sat up and reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet and searching for money for the glue.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s a skin disease at all,” Mac added.

“Oh, I see, the genius Ronald McDonald has arrived,” Dennis said, grinning.

“He sells weed now,” Charlie added. “Throw in a few more dollars, I’m sure he can hook you up.”

“No, I don’t want any new customers. Just filling in for the old guy,” Mac said.

“Who you ratted out,” Dennis commented.

“Look, man, do you have my money or not?”

“Shut up, retard,” Dennis shot back.

Charlie’s eyes widened. Mac came stomping out from behind his back, fists raised.

“Call him that again, I will smash your face in, you baby-footed bitch.”

“Relax, big boy,” Dennis said sweetly. “Just get me the glue and everything’ll be fine.”

“What do you mean? It’ll be fine no matter what I do, and I’m not giving you the glue until you pay me,” Charlie shouted.

“I said shut up!” Dennis snapped. Then, turning back to Mac, he whispered, “Look. I know how much you love being his protective older brother or whatever the hell you see yourself as, but you can’t protect him forever.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Ronnie, hey, I told you to calm down.”

“It’s Mac,” Mac snarled. He had grabbed on to the collar of Dennis’ shirt, and he held a fist over his face.

“Look, man, I don’t wanna play rough. But we’re both going through some hard times right now, and I think we can help each other out.”

“I don’t have any problems. Clearly you do, though. You’re a cutter, and apparently a drug addict too. How do you think Daddy’s gonna feel when he figures out his son’s all messed up in the head, huh?”

“He’s not going to find out. No one’s going to find out anything. And you’re gonna give me that glue.”

“Why?”

“Because I know the retard’s got a secret.”

Mac wasted no time punching Dennis square in the face.

“Sorry,” Dennis muttered, turning his now more rattled head towards Charlie. “Would ‘tranny’ be more preferable?”

Charlie stood still in the stall doorway, clutching the glue tightly in his hand. He hated Dennis so much. He hated the words coming out of his mouth, he hated the stupid grin on his face, he hated how rich and annoying he was.

“I swear to god, I’m gonna kick your teeth in,” Mac hissed.

“Just… call me Charlie,” Charlie mumbled from across the room. He waved halfheartedly.

“I know who you are, Charlie Kelly. We’re alike in that way, the three of us. We all know who you are. What you are. It’s like a secret club. And if you give me that glue, it’ll stay that way.”

“A secret?”

“Yes.”

“What happens if I don’t?”

“I’m one of the most popular kids in this goddamn school. Everyone would know within a week.” Dennis laughed menacingly as he spoke.

“I’m not scared.”

“Then you’re even more brain-dead than everyone thinks you are. I know people, Charlie. They’d eat you alive if they knew.”

“And what if they knew about you?”

“They’d call me emo, probably. Maybe force me into a few counselling sessions. It might even turn out better for me in the end.”

“You can’t hurt him if you’re in rehab,” Mac added. “New plan-I call 911, you get put in a looney bin, and we go on with our lives.”

“That _is_ a good plan. But I wasn’t talking about that.”

“What else could there be?” Dennis asked. “My life’s perfect. Other than the whole addiction thing.”

“If your life’s so great, why are you an addict?” Charlie argued.

“My parents are quite influential.”

“That, or you were molested.”

“Okay, that’s impressive,” Mac said. His hand was still firmly hooked to Dennis’ collar, but he glanced at Charlie for a brief moment.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” Dennis said calmly. “He’s far from clairvoyant. My dad’s rich and I have tiny feet. Everyone knows that. The molestation thing, he probably just pulled out of his ass. No pun intended.”

“So you just wanted to get banged by that librarian, or…” Charlie smirked this time. He and Mac both stared at Dennis. They’d won.

“It seems we’re at an impasse,” Dennis muttered.

“It seems we are,” Charlie replied, still smirking.

“Now what? We’re just gonna hold terrible secrets over each other’s heads for the rest of our lives?”

“I guess so.”

“Jeez.”

“Yeah.”

Mac finally let go of Dennis’ collar, determining that he was no longer a threat. Whatever damage he could do to Charlie wouldn’t be worth the retaliation.

“You should probably clean out those cuts,” Charlie suggested. “This whole place is probably coated in some kind of flesh-eating bacteria.”

“Yeah, I was getting to that,” Dennis muttered. He began rinsing the blood off his arms. Mac and Charlie stood behind him and watched. It was hypnotic.

Charlie approached him slowly, standing beside him at the sink.

“There’s probably more glue in the art room,” he offered. “Just sneak in and get your own.”

“Are you kidding?” Mac shouted. “Dude, he was gonna give us a hundred dollars.”

“Why would I share it with you?” Charlie asked.

“‘Cause we’re best friends.”

“Well, it’s my glue, so tough. Besides, I doubt he had the money anyway.”

Charlie began grabbing handfuls of paper towels and offering them to Dennis.

“I can dry my own hands,” Dennis said, narrowing his eyes at Charlie.

“No, dude, put ‘em on your cuts. That shit is gonna keep bleeding.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. I just figured, ‘cause they’re so deep.”

“They’re not that bad.”

“Dude, I think they are. Like, you’re not gonna die, but they look pretty bad.”

“I have experience with this, alright? I can handle it myself.”

And with that, Dennis grabbed a few paper towels and waltzed out of the bathroom.

Mac and Charlie just stared at each other.

“Is it just me, or was he kind of hot?” Mac asked softly.

“Dude… come on,” Charlie said. He tossed the paper towels into the trash can and went to grab his backpack out of the bathroom stall.

“Like, I’m not gay, but when I was holding him against the wall? I feel like, I dunno, there was something there. Like he was kinda into it, and I was kinda into it, but for different reasons. But since we were both into it it kinda became the same reason and it was just kinda hot.”

“Mac, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“There was, like, sexual tension! I dunno, man. I think those glue fumes are starting to get to me.”

“Please don’t start crushing on Dennis fucking Reynolds. I know you need a sugar daddy, but you can do better.”

“I don’t have a crush on him! I’m not gay!”

“Just keep telling yourself that, man.”

“I told you. I still wanna get into heaven.”

“Pretty sure lying is a bigger deal than kissing boys, but what do I know?”

“You don’t know shit. You can’t read.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t know shit.”

“You don’t know shit about the bible.”

“I don’t care about the bible!”

“Have fun in Hell then, dumbass.”

Charlie didn’t reply. He approached the bathroom door, and Mac had no choice but to follow him. The two walked down the hall to their next class-math. They were on about the same level when it came to math: Mac wasn’t good at it, Charlie wasn’t particularly good at it either but he was better at it than everyone expected him to be.

When they entered the classroom, however, they were met with an unpleasant surprise.

“Are you following me?” Dennis exclaimed from his position in the back corner of the room.

“No, this is just our class,” Mac replied. He took a seat right next to Dennis. His posture suggested that he was asserting dominance or something, but Charlie knew he only sat next to Dennis so he could stare at him all day instead of learning about exponential functions.

Charlie took his usual seat next to the bookshelf in the back of the room. There wasn’t a chair there, but pretty much every teacher in the school had given up trying to make him sit in chairs, so the back corner had become his domain.

Dennis turned around in his chair, staring at Charlie. Charlie stared back.

“I can see you, you know,” Charlie said, narrowing his eyes.

“No, no, I’m just…” Dennis stammered. “Thanks, man. For that tip about the art room.” He hung his arms over the back of his chair, his sleeves barely covering his cuts.

“Dude,” Mac hissed under his breath. “Are you high right now?”

“What? That just makes two of us,” Dennis retorted, gesturing at Charlie.

“He’s just always like that! No one questions it when it’s him! Dude, the art teacher is gonna wonder what’s happening to all the glue.”

“Like she’d ever suspect two kids who don’t take art.”

“What about two kids who are literally high on glue?”

“Shhh. Shut up. I don’t give a shit.”

Mac shut his mouth, and Dennis tried to hide his shaking hands as the teacher entered the room. He’d never actually done glue before, he’d never huffed this much, it felt _weird_ , like his body wasn’t really connected to his brain.

He approached Charlie after class, pulling him aside by the collar of his shirt.

“Ow!” Charlie yelled. “Don’t touch me, man.” He shook Dennis off, but stayed to talk to him nonetheless.

“Sorry,” Dennis said. “And I’m… sorry about earlier too. I’ve had a really bad day, and I shouldn’t have said those things, and I probably deserved to have Mac punch me.”

“It’s cool,” Charlie assured him.

“Really?”

“Yeah, man. You’ve had a bad day. You’ve had a bad… what is it now, three weeks?”

Dennis raised an eyebrow.

“Hell, I’m surprised you made it this long without huffing glue.”

“Is this about me banging that librarian?” Dennis whispered.

“Shhh. Don’t say that out loud.”

“It wasn’t that bad, okay? She was old and gross, but like, it was consensual.”

“Keep telling yourself that, man. And keep huffing glue, ‘cause it only gets worse.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“No, no, I actually think you do.”

“Nah. I’m stupid, remember? You said it yourself. Except you didn’t say stupid.”

“I told you I didn’t mean that.”

“I know, dude. Just… don’t think about it too hard, okay?”

“Think about _what?_ ”

“You know.”

And then Charlie walked out the door to join Mac on his way to the last class of the day.

“Why were you talking to Dennis?” Mac asked Charlie as the two walked side by side down the hall.

“He just wanted to apologize for earlier,” Charlie explained. “And thank me for the glue.”

“You really think he’s sorry?”

“Sure, man. He didn’t mean it. He’s all messed up right now, so he’s gonna do stupid things.”

“How do you know he’s not just telling you that?”

“Look, just… take my word for it. I know what he’s going through.”

“So you really do think he was raped,” Mac said, his voice a hushed whisper.

“Shhh! I _know_ , okay?”

“How? How could you possibly know that? I don’t care how much you’ve been following around during school, there’s no way you could know for sure.”

“Shut up, okay? He’s following us.”

Mac turned around. Sure enough, Dennis remained a few feet behind them, staring in their direction as if listening intently to their conversation.

“Starting any more rumors about me?” he asked lightheartedly.

“Uhhh… no,” Charlie replied.

“You know,” Dennis said, walking up closer to Mac and Charlie, “that glue’s wearing off pretty fast.”

“Then huff some more, dude,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes. “Or like, deal with it.”

“Nah, I need something stronger.”

“Well, I don’t fucking know, man! Find some bleach, or like, weird science chemicals. I’m not a drug dealer, I just know where to find glue.”

“Isn’t Mac a drug dealer though?”

“Just pot,” Mac clarified. “And I told you, I don’t want any new customers.”

“Yeah, man, you don’t seem like a weed guy anyway,” Charlie added. “Just huff more glue, okay? You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna be fine.”

“Not my problem!”

And then he stormed off, Mac in tow, on the way to class.

“What is his deal man?” Mac asked. “Like, an hour ago he was insulting you, and now he wants to buy drugs from you or something?”

“Believe me man, I have no idea what’s going on in that dude’s head,” Charlie said. “It’s probably full of spiders and junk, but I dunno what kind of junk exactly he has up there, you know?”

“I… think so, yeah.”

“Also, did you see his arms, dude? Like, what the fuck was that!”

“I dunno, dude. You know, people like him are like… they’re trying to kill themselves without dying.”

“Mac, what-”

“Yeah! See, he’s too much of a pussy to actually off himself, so he just cuts himself like a little bitch so he can feel like he’s dying without actually dying.”

“You seem to know a lot about this.”

“I’m not a cutter! That’s a sin, dude.”

“It is?”

“I mean, I think so. Cause like, killing yourself is a sin. And if he’s trying to get close to that without actually dying, like, I think that’s a sin too.”

“But huffing glue is perfectly fine according to the bible.”

“Look, man, I didn’t write the thing. I just follow it.”

“Sin or not though, his arms were fucking gross.”

“Oh of course, are you kidding me? He’s disgusting, man.”

“Like, if that’s not a sin, it really should be.”

The two of them shared a laugh as they finally walked into class.

Dennis didn’t go to his last class of the day. Instead, he staked out a position in the bathroom, rolled up his sleeves so he could see his cuts, and held the jar of glue close to him like he was a starving orphan and it was a can of hot soup given to him by some kind passerby-his final bit of sustenance on the cold, desolate streets; the only thing keeping him alive as he cowered in an alley, half dead. He took periodic huffs of the glue jar, numbing his mind just enough to stop feeling so much. So much, all the time, so much that it _hurt_ from all the awful thoughts expanding in his brain and threatening to burst his skull open if he didn’t take a gun and do it himself first.

“Sweet cuts, dude.”

Dennis looked up to find he had been joined by another person in the bathroom. He couldn’t focus well enough to make out the guy’s face, but he could see the sharp corners of a menacing grin beginning to show on his face.

“Yeah, I got ‘em knife fighting,” Dennis lied, smiling wryly.

“Knife fighting, huh,” the kid snorted. “What’s the glue for?”

“Getting high.”

“You do you, baby feet.”

“I do not have baby feet! They’re… they’re not that small, okay? You should see my sister’s, they’re freakishly huge.”

“Dude, I don’t wanna see anyone’s feet. That’s gay.”

“What is gay about feet?”

“You know.”

The guy disappeared into a stall, leaving Dennis to take another hit of glue and shake erratically in the corner. It felt weird and uncomfortable, but it was better than all the feelings and emotions he was currently holding back. He really did feel bad for making fun of Charlie, because the kid was a fucking genius. Glue was amazing. It brought him into a pleasant, vaguely electric nothing, and he felt a weight lift off his chest. Just a little, so he could still feel it hovering above him waiting to fall back down, but in the meantime he could finally catch his breath.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time they arrived in first period the next morning, Mac and Charlie knew that Dennis was going to become a permanent fixture in their lives whether they liked it or not. Dennis was seated in the back of the room, head on his desk, his eyes darkened from lack of sleep.

“Hey guys,” he slurred.

“Dude,” Mac said. “You look awful.”

“Really? I didn’t think it was that bad. I put some concealer on.”

“That is incredibly gay.”

“Oh, so when you come to school hungover and everyone says ‘Hey, Mac, your eyes look all sunken and disgusting, are you hungover?’ you’ll have no choice but to say yes, but at least you’ll be straight.”

“That’s… that’s the plan.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Well, your whole gay makeover isn’t doing much anyway!”

“Stop calling each other gay!” Charlie yelled. “I-I don’t care if you’re gay, or who’s gay, or why you’re gay. I don’t give a shit. Dennis, why are you hungover?”

“‘Cause I was up all night drinking.”

“How? Why?”

“‘Cause my idiot dad left a bottle of vodka on the counter and I needed some of it, okay? It wasn’t a lot, just enough to get a little wasted.”

“You’re fourteen! You don’t need to be wasted at all!”

“Maybe you don’t. But I do. Actually, you probably do too. I highly doubt someone who huffs as much glue as you apparently do has a good life.”

“So? Glue’s legal, dude. If you need more, just get more.”

“Sure, sure, whatever. Not my fault you’re too pussy to drink alcohol.”

Mac looked back and forth between the two of them for a second.

“You think that was transphobic?” he whispered to Charlie, raising a fist at Dennis.

“What? No, dude. You called him a pussy yesterday.”

“Nah, but that’s… never mind.”

“If you really wanna punch him, just like… give it a minute. He’ll say something stupid.”

“Hey Mac, what is your deal, anyway?” Dennis asked. “You really love that tranny friend of yours, and yet you went on a tirade about gay marriage a few days ago in history.”

“That is not the same thing!” Mac shouted. Then, looking at Charlie, he asked, “Can I punch him now?”

“Uh… I dunno. I think he’s actually trying to be a decent human being. He’s awful at it, but like, he’s trying.”

“If anything, I should be punching him for you,” Dennis suggested. “Have you heard what he’s said about gay marriage?”

“He just doesn’t wanna go to hell, okay? Catholic school fucked him up.”

“Catholic school taught me to be a good person!” Mac shouted. “A good person who does not ever wanna see two dudes fucking!”

“I don’t wanna see that either,” Charlie said. “I don’t wanna see anyone fucking anyone, but at least I don’t hate gay people!”

“Well, of course _you_ don’t,” Dennis added.

“Okay, now that makes it sound like you’re calling him gay,” Mac said.

“Is he… not gay?”

The two looked at Charlie questioningly.

“I mean, I dunno if I’m gay. I don’t like any girls, and like, I don’t like any guys either. At least, right now, I mean. I just don’t know yet.”

“So you aren’t not gay,” Dennis said.

“Dude, why do you care?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, you care so much it seems like you might be kinda gay,” Mac added.

“So? Who gives a shit anymore?”

“You’re going to hell if you are.”

“Again, so? I’ve already had sex before marriage, so I may as well be gay now.”

“Well, that shouldn’t count against you,” Charlie interjected.

“Why not?” Mac asked. “That’s a sin, dude.”

“I mean, cause of the whole… you know.”

“Oh. _Oh._ Uhh… fuck, dude.”

“Just shut up, okay?” Dennis said. “More people are coming in.”

Mac sat down next to him, and Charlie took a seat next to Mac. He immediately started tipping back in his chair, nearly falling out onto his ass. This was the other reason Charlie usually wound up sitting on the floor: in the rare cases he decided to sit in a chair, he’d usually tip right out of it.

Class began as it normally did, with the ringing of the school bell piercing through Dennis’ ears. It was even worse this time given his hungover state, and the booming voice of the elderly man who taught their English class didn’t help either. He buried his face in his hands, collapsing onto his desk unceremoniously. Soon, however, he was rudely awakened by clapping next to his face.

“Head up, Mister Reynolds!” The old man shouted cheerily. “Now, while you’re up, would you like to tell us what Shakespeare meant by this line…”

He drawled in incessantly, and Dennis practically shook with rage. _Glue_ , he thought to himself. _I need more glue_.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Dennis half-muttered. “I-I’m feeling a bit sick. Can I go to the nurse?”

“Are you sick, or just tired?” the teacher asked, chuckling to himself.

“I’m gonna puke on your shoes if I don’t leave right now,” Dennis threatened.

“Alright, fine. Go.”

Dennis grabbed his backpack and rushed out of class, but instead of going to the nurse, he ducked into the nearest bathroom and pulled the glue out of his backpack. He held it to his face and took a few quick huffs, feeling the chemicals perforate his brain almost instantly. It did nothing for his headache, but it did serve to somewhat numb the emotional pain that had been constantly plaguing him lately. But the glue wasn’t good enough. He didn’t want to be numb, he just wanted to be distracted. A different kind of hurt, that’s what he needed. Something to pull his focus off his throbbing head.

After a moment of digging through his backpack, Dennis pulled out a Swiss Army knife. It was one of the only gifts his awful father had ever given him: he’d received it when he decided he wanted to sign up for Boy Scouts, before his father had decided that he was “too much of a pansy for all that outdoorsy shit”. Dennis had to admit, he was probably right, but it still stung. He’d kept the knife though, and throughout the years he’d found a few uses for it. His favorite tool in the knife, however, had always been the good old-fashioned double-edged knife blade. It would be his go-to option if he ever needed to stab someone, but in the meantime, he turned the knife on his own flesh.

It was sharp as hell, mainly because Dennis had made a point of sharpening it whenever he felt any resistance while cutting. He barely needed to press at all to get a good cut, and the knife glided through his flesh as if through butter. Dennis’ breathing quickened to a pant as he sliced at his forearms. He’d never been disturbed by the sight of blood, but in recent times he felt he was beginning to enjoy it. The sting of metal ripping through his flesh, the slow trickle of blood down his arms, the burning ache that followed-it was beginning to border on arousing. Dennis wouldn’t jerk off to it though, he promised himself that. _If you even touch your dick right now you’re gonna end up some kind of sadomasochist and you’re gonna spend your life zip-tied to a bed or zip-tying other people to beds or something. Is that what you want? Would that be worth it?_

“Of course.”

Dennis looked up. Mac and Charlie we’re standing in the doorway, shaking their heads at him.

“Dude, seriously, you gotta stop cutting yourself in here,” Charlie said. “You’re gonna get some kind of flesh-eating bacteria and then your arm’s gonna fall off. Come on, man.”

“Why are you convinced that there’s flesh eating bacteria in the school bathroom?” Dennis asked.

“I watched a documentary about it.”

“Did you?”

“Look, dude, Charlie’s bacteria obsession is not the problem here,” Mac interjected.

“I can cut myself if I want to, okay?” Dennis shouted, gesturing wildly. A few drops of blood flew onto the floor.

“You can,” Charlie agreed, “but like, don’t.”

“Says the guy who huffs glue every single day.”

“I need glue!” Charlie yelled. “And like, glue isn’t literally ripping my skin apart or whatever.”

“Yeah, but your brain’s probably all shrivelled. You probably don’t even have a learning disability, you just huffed so much glue as a kid your brain just kinda died.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ve been huffing glue since I was a little kid. But that’s not what we’re talking about!”

“Look, just leave me alone, okay? I need to cut. Just like you need to huff glue, and Mac needs… to get on his knees for Jesus or something.”

Mac and Charlie looked at each other. They knew Dennis couldn’t possibly be justified in his argument, but neither one could think of a good comeback.

“At least let me like, clean you up, okay?” Charlie insisted.

“Dude,” Mac said, wrinkling his nose. “Gross.”

“Hey, I know some first aid. Dennis, get up.”

“Since when do you know first aid?”

“My mom taught me. In case I get like, attacked.”

“What…”

“It doesn’t matter, okay? Dennis. _Get up._ ”

Dennis staggered to his feet, flipping his knife closed and stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans. Charlie grabbed his hand and pulled his arm underneath the sink. He grabbed a handful of soap and began rubbing it on Dennis’ cuts. Dennis winced at the sting.

“Ew, dude, don’t touch his blood!” Mac yelled.

“Shut up,” Charlie snapped. “It’s not like he has, like, AIDS or anything.”

Mac looked quizzically at Dennis.

“God dammit, I do not have AIDS, Mac,” Dennis growled. “What is your problem?”

Mac didn’t reply. He backed away towards the door and watched as Charlie scrubbed intently at Dennis’ arms.

“Charlie, that hurts,” Dennis whined.

“So? It’s not like you can’t take pain. You did this to yourself.”

“You know what? Fuck off,” Dennis snapped, swatting him away. “I can do this myself.”

“Fine,” Charlie replied, backing away. He stood at the sink and watched closely as Dennis towelled himself off.

“You guys really gotta leave me alone,” Dennis insisted. “I just… I don’t… I can’t deal with you.”

“Too bad,” Charlie shot back. “You keep talking to us.”

“Pretty sure I’m not the one who followed you into the bathroom and insisted on bathing you like a child, but sure.”

“You clearly needed help. You probably still do.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve got my glue, I’ve got… knives, it’ll be fine.”

“That’s not ‘fine’.”

“It’s fine for me. Just let me be, okay?”

“No! Dude, you’re gonna like, die. You’re actually gonna kill yourself.”

“Maybe so. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There is a lot wrong with that.”

“Why do you care?”

Charlie sputtered. The thing was, he didn’t know. Of course, Dennis Reynolds probably didn’t deserve to die. Nobody really deserved to die. But why did it feel like Charlie’s responsibility to make sure Dennis didn’t die?

He felt a connection to Dennis, he realised. They were more alike than they pretended to be; they were united on a subconscious level through some horrible thing they’d both experienced. If Dennis died, that meant Charlie was going to die too, and that was scary.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said at last. “I just think, like, you don’t deserve to die.”

“How do you know?”

“I just _think_. But I’m pretty sure.”

Charlie tore off a few paper towels and offered them to Dennis. He didn’t bother trying to wrap them around his arms like bandages, as he knew he’d just be swatted away, but he cringed as Dennis rejected the paper towels and instead just pulled his sleeves down over the fresh cuts. Cotton in a wound was going to sting like hell, plus god knows what kind of gross shit could now make its way past his shirt and into the cuts?

“Can we go back to class now?” Dennis asked, picking up his backpack.

“Dude, class is over,” Mac said. “Didn’t you hear the bell?”

“Oh. No. I… wasn’t paying attention.”

“What is wrong with you, man?”

“Everything, Mac,” Charlie said matter-of-factly.

“Not everything,” Dennis argued. “I can sort of be a functioning human being.”

“Dude, you’re skipping class to huff glue and cut yourself,” Mac remarked. “Don’t bullshit me.”

“You’re doing the same thing!” Dennis argued, pointing at Charlie. “Except without the cutting.”

“Cutting’s not safe,” Charlie replied.

“Neither is huffing glue. Now we really should go to second period or they’ll think we died.”

“Yes! Come on!” Mac yelled, practically storming out the door. Charlie moved to follow him, but Dennis once again held him back.

“Meet me back here in fifteen minutes,” he whispered.

“Why?” Charlie asked.

“I wanna talk to you. Alone. Don’t bring Mac.”

“Why?”

“Stop asking why! You’ll see.” Dennis was gripping Charlie by the shoulder, running his thumb slowly along the collar of his shirt. It was weird as hell, but it was nice and gentle enough that Charlie didn’t want to push him off.

“Okay,” he agreed, his voice hushed.

“Good,” Dennis said, smiling. He removed his hand from Charlie’s shoulder, and Charlie found himself missing it.

They walked in silence out of the bathroom, Charlie turning to follow Mac and Dennis continuing down the hallway to his own class.

“There you are,” Mac said as Charlie ran up next to him. “What did Dennis want, anyway?”

“I… don’t know,” Charlie replied.

“Weird,” Mac said casually. They walked into class as if nothing had happened.

Charlie watched the clock intently, waiting patiently for fifteen minutes to pass before asking to be excused to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t a lie; that’s where he was going, after all, but he still ran as fast as he could for fear of being caught doing something suspicious.

Dennis was waiting for him, standing at the sink and flipping his Swiss Army knife open and closed absentmindedly.

“You sure Mac didn’t follow you?” he asked.

“I think so,” Charlie replied, glancing over his shoulder.

“Good. Come here.” Dennis opened the stall door and stepped in, motioning for Charlie to follow him.

“I… thought you said we should be saving the handicapped stall for handicapped people.” Charlie said shakily.

“You’re handicapped, right?” Dennis said with a laugh. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”

“Why can’t we stay out here?”

“I don’t want someone to see us.”

Charlie took a step back, his hands starting to shake with fear.

“Are-are you gonna fuck me?”

Dennis laughed. It was a menacing laugh, but Charlie was willing to ignore that. He figured Dennis wasn’t really capable of any kind of laugh other than “menacing”.

“No, dumbass, I’m not gonna fuck you,” Dennis said.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, sure, I promise. Now get in here.”

Charlie stepped into the stall, maintaining as much distance from Dennis as he could in the cramped space. He looked at the knife in Dennis’ hand.

“Are you gonna stan me?” he asked.

“No, of course not,” Dennis replied. “Well… not exactly.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to talk to me,” Dennis said. “Tell me about your childhood. Surely something happened to you as a kid, to make you like this.”

“Like how?”

“You said you’d been huffing glue since kindergarten.”

Charlie actually breathed a sigh of relief at that, knowing that this wasn’t going to be a discussion of his gender or his mental disability. That was hard to explain. He barely understood the story behind those things himself.

“Uhh… yeah,” he replied. “I got some for Christmas, in a model airplane kit. It was nice.”

“Why, though? Why’d you keep doing it?”

“‘Cause it’s addictive?”

“No, no, there must be something else. Like, you knew something happened to me with that librarian. You knew I was in a rough spot, you knew I needed glue. How’d you figure that out?”

“Well, you were cutting yourself. It wasn’t hard to tell that you were kinda fucked up.”

“But you knew beforehand.”

“I mean… I guess I could just… tell.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look, I don’t know where you’re going with this,” Charlie said, exasperated. “If you have a question, just spit it out!”

“What happened to you, Charlie?” Dennis asked, his voice even and soft. He approached him slowly, leading Charlie to press himself against the wall of the bathroom. Dennis grabbed him by the shoulder and ran his thumb across his collar again. This served to calm him down a bit, but he still shook with nerves.

“N-Nothing,” Charlie mumbled. “I swear.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Dennis said gently. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“You literally threatened to tell people I was trans yesterday. How can I trust you?”

“Because you already know about me.”

“I mean, I know one thing. You know one thing about me. We’d need to go two for two.”

“You know that I cut myself.”

“Dennis, I think everyone knows that. You don’t hide it very well.”

Dennis glanced at his sleeve. Sure enough, blood was beginning to soak through.

“Uhh… my dad’s horrible.”

“I don’t even have a dad. Try harder.”

“He locked me in a closet.”

Charlie smiled, making a thoughtful “hmm” noise under his breath.

“How long?”

“Like, a day.”

“Wow. That’s pretty messed up.”

“So now will you tell me?”

Charlie breathed in deeply. He’d never told anyone this before, not even his own mother. A lump formed in his throat, and he started to feel sick. But he had to keep up his end of the deal.

“I think my uncle tried to molest me.”

“You think?”

“Well… he’d tackle me, and…” Charlie’s breathing quickened, and he started sweating.

“Just once, or…”

“I wish. I had to share a room with him for years, dude.” A tear fell from Charlie’s eye, and he quickly wiped it away.

“And he’d…”

“Almost every night.”

“Did you ever try to stop him?”

“I couldn’t, okay?” Charlie exclaimed, breaking out into sobs. “I was a little kid! And he was bigger and stronger than me and-and-”

“Shh,” Dennis said, allowing Charlie to lean into him for support. “I know. I think I know the rest.”

Charlie spent a few minutes just sobbing into Dennis’ chest. Dennis rubbed his back gently.

“I’ve never told anyone that,” Charlie muttered. “Why the hell did I tell you?”

“I don’t know,” Dennis replied. “Hey, I have something for you.”

Charlie lifted his head off of Dennis and stared at him intently. Dennis held up his knife.

“No,” Charlie said. “It’s not safe. Plus it has your blood on it already, so like, super not safe.”

“Just try it,” Dennis insisted. “You’ll feel better, I promise.”

Charlie accepted the knife from Dennis, but made no move to actually cut himself with it. He ran his finger along the the middle of the blade, feeling the cool, thin metal. It sent a chill down his spine. The knife was almost certainly very, very sharp. A light touch would probably be enough to tear his skin apart. He pulled the cuff of his left sleeve up just enough to expose his wrist, then rotated his arm to expose the underside.

“Not there,” Dennis insisted. “Skin’s too thin. You could fuck it up too easily.”

“Fuck it up,” Charlie mused. “You mean, like, kill myself?”

“Well… yeah. Just do a few cuts okay? Horizontally. On the thick side of your arm. You’ll be fine.”

“N-no. I don’t think so.”

“Just try one. If you like it, you can do more.”

A single cut seemed fairly noncommittal, so Charlie brushed the knife across his arm in one quick, forceful stroke. He winced at the pain. It didn’t hurt that badly at first, but as the cut opened up and blood began to drip out, he started to feel the sting.

“That was _horrible_ , dude!” he exclaimed. “Why would you ever want to do that?” He closed the knife and thrust it back at Dennis, who took it back, looking defeated.

“So you didn’t like it?” he asked.

“Uh, no? That hurt! And I’m not, like, high or anything! What’s the fucking point?”

“I mean, it’s different for different people,” Dennis explained, staring at his feet in shame. “I just like seeing the blood come out. And I like the scars. They make me look… damaged and scary. Some people find it attractive.”

“For the record, they make you look gross and insane. No one finds that attractive.”

“It’ll grow on you.”

“What?”

“N-Nothing. Never mind.”

“Dennis, are you trying to seduce me by cutting yourself?”

“No! I mean, not exactly. I just figure… we’re both damaged people, right?” He gently placed his hands on Charlie’s shoulders, staring into his eyes. Charlie attempted to avoid his gaze. “We’re a lot alike, Charlie. We can get through this together, okay? Skip class together, hide in the bathroom and huff glue and cut ourselves. It’ll be nice. Just you and I, being our awful, broken selves.”

“You’re creeping me out,” Charlie said. “And I’m not gonna cut myself. Not with you, not ever. Mac says it’s a sin.”

“Well, Mac is probably too busy sucking Jesus’ dick to care what you do.”

“Still. I’m not doing it again.”

“A shame,” Dennis murmured. “You’d look cute covered in cuts.”

“Alright, enough!” Charlie exclaimed, shoving Dennis away. “You’re weird and gross, and this all feels kind of gay and I don’t wanna be a part of it.” He stormed out of the bathroom stall, clutching his bleeding wrist, and rushed back to class.

Mac turned to him as soon as he sat back down, concern in his eyes.

“Dude, where were you? What happened?”

“I was with Dennis,” Charlie muttered.

“Doing what?”

“He wanted me to cut myself.”

“What? Why? Did you?”

“Just once. It sucked a lot and I’m not gonna do it again, but that’s not the worst part.”

“What happened?”

“He got all gay on me, man!”

“ _What?_ ”

“Yeah! He said I’d be cute with cuts or something and he kept touching my shoulders and I was like ‘dude, gross!’ and then I left.”

“Ew. Yeah, man, stay away from him.”

“Uh, yeah!”

Charlie dug through his backpack for a band-aid to put on his cut. He knew he had to have at least one; his mom made him keep them on hand. For safety.

Mac stayed close to Charlie the rest of the day, in an effort to protect him from Dennis. He even suggested that they hide out in one of the hallways during lunch so Dennis couldn’t find them. Charlie figured he was just being paranoid, but he complied. After all, he was kind of afraid of encountering Dennis after everything that had just happened.

However, they couldn’t avoid him anymore when it came to the final class of the day. Mac held tightly to Charlie’s hand as the two stepped into the classroom, and he made sure to give Dennis the worst death glare he could manage.

“Mac, what’s your problem?” Dennis asked, leaning back casually in his chair.

“What’s my problem? You’re hitting on my friend! And you made him cut himself!”

“I asked him to cut himself,” Dennis corrected. “And he did! He decided he didn’t like it, and that was that.”

“That was not that,” Charlie argued. “You were hitting on me.”

“Was I?”

“Yeah, dude! You told me all about your weird fantasies about me and you cutting ourselves together or something and then you said I was cute!”

“Oh. Shit,” Dennis muttered. “I suppose that was kinda gay, huh.”

“Dude, that sounds _really_ gay,” Mac shot back.

“I suppose you’re gonna beat me up now?”

Mac paused. “No,” he decided. “Just don’t do any more gay stuff to Charlie, okay?”

“Define gay stuff,” Charlie said.

“What?”

“Like, when he was touching my shoulders. Is that gay stuff?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“Huh.” Charlie thought about it for a minute. He didn’t hate the shoulder-touching thing. It was nice, actually. Until Dennis started actually hitting on him, of course.

“Are you saying you’re okay with some gay stuff?” Mac asked urgently.

“How about we just say no weird sexual fantasies involving me cutting myself,” Charlie suggested.

“That wasn’t sexual,” Dennis argued.

“It was kinda sexual.”

“No!” Mac shouted. “No gay stuff! At all!”

“Look, Jesus boy,” Dennis sighed. “If the kid’s cool with some gay stuff, you can’t stop him.”

“You guys are going to Hell,” Mac grumbled. He took a seat as far away from Dennis as possible. Charlie sat down in his corner, which was conveniently right behind Dennis.

“For the record,” he whispered, “I didn’t hate it when you touched my shoulders.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Dennis whispered back.

Charlie blushed, picking at the band-aid on his arm nervously. This was all kind of weird and definitely gay, and Mac would definitely disapprove, but you know what? Screw Mac. Mac wasn’t his dad. He didn’t even have a dad.

He ended up walking home with an air of confidence he’d never really had, which only served to frustrate Mac further. However, the good mood was spoiled when he walked inside and was greeted by his mother, who immediately noticed the bandage on his arm.

“Charlie!” she exclaimed, grabbing his arm. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Charlie mumbled. “It’s just a paper cut, okay?”

“That looks like a lot of blood, sweetie,” his mother said. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah!” Charlie exclaimed. “I told you, it’s-”

He was cut off by his mother practically lifting him up in a tight hug.

“My poor little gingerbread man,” she whispered. “You need to be more careful, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Charlie grumbled, struggling out of the hug and running upstairs to his room. He buried his face in his pillow and screamed in frustration. Everything was confusing and stupid, everyone was trying to hold his hand through the easy things and leaving him to figure out the hard things himself. He couldn’t figure out if he loved Dennis or was scared of Dennis, he didn’t know if he was gay or straight or what the fuck was happening, he had just talked about the worst thing that ever happened to him for the first time in his life. And here was his mom, wanting to kiss his boo-boos like a baby.

Fuck. _Fuck._ He’d actually told Dennis about Uncle Jack. No one knew about that. Not Mac, not his mother, and if he was high enough, not even him. But now Dennis fucking Reynolds knew about it.

That made them even, Charlie told himself. They both know about each other’s terrible tortured pasts, they both probably had confusing feelings as to whether or not they were gay, and they both had a plethora of other secrets they didn’t want shared. Dennis was right after all. They weren’t so different.

Charlie picked at the band-aid on his wrist again as if to remind himself why he still couldn’t trust Dennis. No matter how alike they were, he just couldn’t let himself trust someone who encouraged things like that. Someone who thought disgusting cuts and scars were attractive. He turned over in his bed, pillow held firmly over his face in exasperation, thinking about Dennis. Not even the things Dennis had said, just Dennis in general. Dennis, with his sunken eyes and mangled arms and thin, bony form. It was an image that should have disgusted him, but for some reason, it just didn’t.

Mac’s voice seemed to play over and over in his head: _Dude, that’s kinda gay._ But he didn’t care about that. So what if he was gay? It would just be the cherry on top of his life as a social outcast. The problem was having feelings for Dennis fucking Reynolds of all people.


	3. Chapter 3

Charlie awoke in a cold sweat. It wasn’t the first time this had happened; nightmares had been a core part of his existence since he was a little kid, but something told him this wasn’t a nightmare. The paralyzing fear that usually came from meeting the monsters lurking in his dreams just wasn’t there, and he felt weird, but not entirely bad. He had no memory of what the dream had been about, but he felt like he didn’t want to know.

When he walked into class that morning, however, things unfortunately became more clear. The weird-but-not-bad feeling returned when he set his eyes on Dennis, and he averted his eyes out of shame. He pulled on Mac’s sleeve urgently.

“What is it?” Mac asked.

“I… think I had a dream about Dennis last night,” Charlie whispered.

“What kind of dream?”

“Like, the gay kind.”

“Oh, shit. This isn’t good, man. This is really bad. You gotta stay away from him, okay?”

“What are you two whispering about?” Dennis asked smugly.

“Nothing!” Charlie exclaimed, his face turning bright red.

“Are you trying to turn him gay?” Mac asked angrily.

“What?” Dennis replied.

“He’s having gay dreams! About you!”

“Don’t tell him that,” Charlie muttered, hiding his face in his hands.

“I mean, I can’t blame him. I’m very attractive. Although if he’s having gay dreams at all, I think that might just mean he’s gay.”

“How could… how could this happen? He went to Catholic school with me, he knows it’s wrong…”

“I can hear you, you know,” Charlie grumbled. “I don’t care about the bible, okay? You’re the only person here who cares about that shit. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid! It’s not stupid and you’re gonna go to Hell!”

“What’s God’s stance on sins I didn’t want to do?”

“Well, God thinks being gay is a choice, so…”

“Just in general.”

“I mean, if you were held at gunpoint and forced to commit adultery or something I guess He might make an exception. But that’s not what we’re talking about.”

“Okay, yeah.”

“You’re not getting a free pass for being gay. I might forgive you, but God won’t.”

“Whatever, Mac. Shut up.”

Dennis watched the scene play out in complete and utter fascination. When he’d taken Charlie into the bathroom and asked him to cut himself, all he wanted out of it was someone to share in his suffering. In a way, he’d gotten that-he now knew just how similarly tortured he and Charlie were. What he didn’t expect, however, was that Charlie would fall in love with him. Hell, he hadn’t even really thought of Charlie as being capable of falling in love. But here he was, watching that suddenly lovestruck idiot argue over the logistics of gayness with his equally idiotic Catholic best friend. Dennis had half a mind to get himself some popcorn.

Eventually, Mac seemed to grow frustrated, shaking his head and throwing his arms in the air as he walked off and took a seat next to Dennis. Charlie stood there in confusion for a few moments before assuming his own place in the back of the room. He could just barely hear the conversation between Mac and Dennis.

“Look, asshole,” Mac hissed under his breath. “You better stay away from Charlie.”

“Why?” Dennis asked. “Are you jealous?”

“Am I what?”

“Jealous. That Charlie’s falling for me and not you.”

“No! Ew! We’re best friends, but it’s not like that. Gross. I’m just saying stay away from him before you plant any more gross thoughts in his head.”

“Mac, come on. He can think for himself. I didn’t make him have a dream about me, he did that himself!”

“You’re doing something to him. I know it.”

“Come on, man, I’m not turning your little friend gay. If anything, you’re the problem here. Maybe he’d be happier without you telling him who he can love.”

“Okay, okay, maybe he’s gay. I just… want him to stop loving _you_.”

“Rude.”

“You’re the most toxic and disgusting person I’ve ever met, and you are going to get him killed.”

“He huffs glue and drinks paint on a daily basis. If anyone’s gonna get him killed, it’s him.”

Mac put a hand to his head in frustration. Charlie wasn’t going to get himself killed. He had Mac to protect him.

“Personally,” Dennis continued, “I don’t blame him for wanting to die. He’s had a pretty shitty life.”

“Yeah, I know, I’ve been with him the whole time. We both got beat up and insulted our whole lives, that doesn’t mean we’re gonna kill ourselves.”

“Oh, no, you… you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You have no idea what happened to him.”

“You mean other than not having a dad and being trans and getting bullied constantly?”

Dennis laughed.

“Oh, Mac,” he sneered. “I know something you don’t know.”

“You’re sick,” Mac growled.

“We’re all sick, dumbass. Charlie’s just better at hiding it than me. I don’t wanna admit that he’s better than me at anything, but it seems that way.”

Mac spent the rest of class practically tearing his hair out trying to figure out what Dennis was referring to. He’d always suspected there was something more to Charlie, with all his talk of “blocking out thoughts” with his glue huffing. But he figured Charlie would tell him about something like that. They were best friends. How could he have told Dennis of all people, but not his best friend?

He was quick to start questioning Charlie after class let out, taking him by the hand and holding him close. Okay, so they were holding hands. That wasn’t gay. Mac just needed to hold Charlie’s hand to make him feel safe. Whatever had happened, it was probably going to be hard to talk about.

“Charlie, buddy,” Mac said gently, squeezing charlie’s hand tightly. “Is there… something you wanna talk about?”

“What?” Charlie asked, raising an eyebrow. “No. Why would I have something to talk about?”

“Well, uh… you’ve been kind of off lately.”

“This isn’t about gay stuff, is it?”

“No, but like, that too. I mean, it seems like you’ve got some kinda repressed trauma going on or something. You’re huffing glue, you started cutting yourself-”

“I did _not_ start cutting myself. Dennis made me do it.”

“But like, you still did it.”

“I did! And it sucked!”

“Okay, okay, whatever. I still think you’ve got something going on, man.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause… Dennis told me.”

Charlie gulped.

“How much did he tell you, exactly?”

“Oh, just some creepy Dennis shit, like ‘Oooh, I know something you don’t! Blegh!’ But like, I think I believe him. Something happened to you.”

“Nah, man, nothing happened to me. I’m all good.”

“Nothing? Ever?”

“Dude, you’re being weird.” Charlie laughed nervously. He pulled his hand out of Mac’s grasp and shook it a few times, letting out the anxious energy suddenly coursing through his body.

Charlie could barely even maintain his position in the corner during second period, practically rolling around on the floor out of nervousness.

“Charlie, hey, can we focus?” asked a very frustrated-sounding disability aid. He almost had the air of a football coach, lanyard around his neck and arms crossed across his chest. Charlie raised his eyebrows at him.

“I don’t wanna focus,” Charlie grumbled.

“Well, how about you sort those pictures for me, and then we can go take a walk?”

Charlie looked down at the pictures laid out before him-a selection of cartoon drawings of different rocks. Science was one of the classes during which he could almost participate in the class activities-you really didn’t need to know how to read to decide whether a rock was igneus, sedimentary, or metamorphic. Rocks weren’t Charlie’s favorite science; he prefered the science that involved funny little microscopic creatures under the sea. Still, he usually wasn’t one to turn down pictures of rocks, but he just wasn’t feeling up for it at the moment. His head was swimming with thoughts about Dennis, about what he had told Dennis, about what Dennis had told Mac. Everything was all weird.

“Can I take a walk now?” Charlie asked. “I gotta go to the bathroom. Alone.”

“Alright, I guess,” the disability aid grunted. Charlie stood up and practically ran out of the room.

He didn’t return for the rest of class.

He didn’t show up at the beginning of third period either. Mac was starting to legitimately get worried about Charlie’s whereabouts. Was he hanging out with Dennis again? Holy shit, _were they making out?_

Just then, a team of teachers burst through the door of the classroom. A few of them Mac didn’t recognize, but one of them was definitely the art teacher. All of them looked annoyed.

“You,” said one of the teachers Mac didn’t recognize. “Jesus boy.”

“Uh…” Mac muttered to himself. “Whatever happened, I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh, no, you’re not in trouble,” the art teacher assured him. “We just need you to come help with a… problem.”

“Why are you all ganging up on me then?”

“There are only three of us here,” said the other teacher.

“You’re needed in the art room. It won’t take long.”

Mac nodded and followed the group of teachers to the art room. However, once they arrived, it became apparent that nothing was really happening in the art room other than an art class. Then the art teacher opened the door to the art supply closet, and the truth dawned on Mac.

The floor was splattered with opened bottles of paint spilling onto the tile, and partially cracked containers of glue sat in the puddles of paint. In the middle of the mess of art supplies lay a shuddering Charlie.

“Can you talk to him?” the art teacher asked. “I’ve seen you two together, I figure you might be able to get through to him.”

Mac nodded. He kneeled down to talk to Charlie, not to help the art teacher but just because he was worried about his friend. His left knee landed in a small puddle of orange paint, which immediately soaked through his pants and created a dampness which made the situation more uncomfortable. Gingerly, he placed a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, only to have Charlie quickly roll away, creating an increasingly messy collage of paint as he did so.

“Don’t touch me!” he yelled, swatting his hands out in front of his face. He was turned towards Mac, but he was just far enough away that he couldn’t quite hit him.

“Okay, okay,” Mac said calmly. “Do you wanna tell me what you’re doing on the floor?”

“You know,” Charlie said, hugging his knees to his chest and staring into space to avoid eye contact with Mac. “Huffing glue. Drinking paint.”

“Why’d you make such a mess?”

“Got angry.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Nothing. I mean, nothing recently.”

“Is this about what you told Dennis?”

Charlie nodded. He wiped a tear from his eye, then rolled over so he was facing away from Mac.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mac assured him. “You can talk about it. We’re best friends, right? You can trust me. You can tell me anything. I just wanna help you.”

“You can’t help me,” Charlie whined. “It’s done. It already happened.”

“What happened?”

Charlie sniffled.

“You remember my uncle, right?” he asked. “The lawyer?”

“Uncle Jack?” Mac said. “Yeah, I mean, you’ve talked about him.”

“Don’t say his name!” Charlie yelled. “I… I don’t… wanna think about it.”

“Did he do something to you?”

“Yeah.”

It didn’t take Mac long to fill in the blanks after that. Everything made sense: why Charlie had always fled to his house during family gatherings, why he had so often come to school shaking and unable to speak back when they were little, why he was so scared of people touching him for a time. This was why he needed to huff glue and drink paint. This was why Dennis had took such a liking to him-they shared that trauma.

“Charlie…” Mac whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Charlie said between sobs. “He’s gone now, it’s… it’s okay.”

“Is it? You’re crying on the floor of a supply closet huffing glue. And you’re covered in paint.”

Charlie sat up, examining the brightly-colored stains which now covered his shirt and pants.

“Oh. Shit,” he said. “You’re right.”

“Do you have a change of clothes?” Mac asked.

“What? Why would I have a change of clothes?”

“It’s cool,” Mac sighed. “I think I have one in my locker that you can borrow. I know how much you like wearing my clothes.”

Charlie allowed himself a laugh at that comment.

“I do, man. I really do.”

He stood up and followed Mac out of the supply closet, leaving the mess of glue and paint for the art teacher to clean up. One of the other teachers attempted to stop them, but they only walked faster.

They stopped at Mac’s locker, and Mac pulled out an extra set of clothes. To Charlie’s dismay, they were the exact type of clothes Mac had currently taken up wearing-a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of jeans that were definitely tight-fitting.

“Shit, dude, I can’t wear those,” Charlie said sadly.

“Why not?” Mac asked.

“‘Cause like… It’s not gonna look good.”

“Dude, it’ll be fine. Come on.” Mac held the clothes out to Charlie, and Charlie took them reluctantly.

“I’m just saying,” he said as he followed Mac towards the bathroom. “My binder’s gonna show under those stupid cut-off sleeves, and like… those pants are just a bad idea in general, dude.”

“I mean, it’s that or be covered in paint.”

“I know,” Charlie sighed. He stepped into the bathroom stall, quickly took off his paint-covered clothes, and pulled on Mac’s t-shirt and jeans. They still smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke, which was comforting. As he had predicted, the lack of sleeves meant that parts of his binder were exposed, and the jeans were just uncomfortable, but it was the best he could get.

He stared down at his feet as he walked out of the stall, slipping his fingers in the pockets of his jeans. Mac was standing in front of the sink waiting for him, and he couldn’t help but smile when Charlie walked out. His shoulders were dotted with freckles, which Mac was surprised he had never noticed before, but it was very cute.

“You look good!” he exclaimed, smiling at Charlie. Charlie blushed.

“You really think so?” he asked.

“Yeah, dude. I think this should be your new look.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said, smiling from ear to ear.

At lunch, however, things got weird again.

Mac and Charlie had taken up their post a table in the back of the lunch room, eating sandwiches and talking about nothing in particular, when they were suddenly joined by Dennis.

“Charlie,” he said softly, looking pensively across the table. “You’re wearing different clothes.”

“I got covered in paint,” Charlie explained. “Mac let me borrow some clothes.”

“Well, I must say, you wear that outfit much better than Mac does.”

“What?” Mac exclaimed. “I pioneered the outfit! I’m the original! Of course I wear it better.”

“I doubt you invented cutting the sleeves off your shirt,” Dennis retorted.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mac argued. “I still wear it better.”

Dennis shook his head. He spent a few minutes looking over at Charlie, staring at his soft, pale arms and imagining how they’d look with cuts on them. The band-aid from the previous day was still on his wrist, but that was just lame compared to the stinging mess Dennis currently boasted under his own sleeves. It really was a shame that Charlie had been so against cutting himself. Cuts really would suit him.

“You know, you could probably stand to take that band-aid off now,” Dennis said, pointing to Charlie’s arm.

“You sure?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah. Cuts scab up pretty fast. Plus, you’ve picked at it so much it’s practically falling off on its own.”

“Oh.” Charlie pulled the band-aid off and tossed it into a nearby trash can. Dennis looked at the cut beneath. It was pretty deep from the looks of it. No wonder Charlie had been so freaked out by it, that was some next-level stuff. Dennis had barely broken the skin when he first cut, so the idea of going straight from pristine, untouched arms to such a deep, garish cut was almost unbelievable.

“Why were you covered in paint, anyway?” Dennis asked, changing the subject.

“Probably because you made him bring up his horrible traumatic childhood, and he had a meltdown in the art supply closet.”

“It’s not Dennis’ fault,” Charlie muttered. “It was probably gonna happen at some point.”

“I mean, maybe,” Mac said. “But Dennis is still fucking with you, and you really gotta stay away from him.”

“I’m right here,” Dennis said. “And Charlie’s right. He was gonna have a breakdown no matter what I did. Trust me, I know how hard it is going through what he went through. Except I think his trauma was a lot worse.”

Charlie nodded silently, keeping his gaze lowered and focused on the table. It was then that he noticed Dennis wasn’t eating anything.

“Dude, do you have a lunch?” he asked him.

“Oh, I don’t eat lunch,” Dennis replied. “I don’t eat breakfast most days either.” He spoke as if he was bragging, but Mac and Charlie were staring at him in horror.

“Dude, I don’t think that’s healthy,” Mac said.

“You know what’s not healthy?” Dennis asked rhetorically. “Stuffing your face three times a day. I’m simply exercising vigilance in maintaining my physique.”

Charlie blinked at him in confusion. That was a lot of big words.

“I’m gonna stay skinny, unlike you losers,” Dennis said.

“Yeah, you’ll be skinny. You’ll be mostly bone,” Mac retorted.

“Oh, really? If we weren’t in public right now, I’d pop my shirt off and show you just how perfectly sculpted I’ve become.”

“Please don’t take your shirt off,” Charlie muttered. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to see Dennis’ body (no matter how emaciated it might have been), he just didn’t want to look at those cuts.

“I won’t,” Dennis assured him. “Unless you wanna come find me after school. Then I’ll show you what the ideal male body really looks like.”

“Your ‘ideal male body’ is covered in cuts!” Charlie yelled. “Stop acting like you’re so sexy! It’s annoying and it makes you sound stupid! You’re not sexy, you’re just gross!”

A few heads turned to look at him. Dennis shrunk in his seat.

“You… think I’m ugly?” Dennis asked in a hushed voice.

“Well… no,” Charlie replied. “I just think cuts aren’t as attractive as you think they are.”

“You think my cuts are ugly.”

“Yeah, I kinda do.”

Dennis sighed. He rolled his sleeves up just enough to reveal the new set of cuts across his forearms.

“Dennis, stop,” Mac interjected. “You’re being disgusting.”

“I am not disgusting!” Dennis bellowed. “I am beautiful, and you’re just too stupid to see it! Look, Charlie, that cut on your arm from yesterday. Can’t you see how pretty it is?”

“No! What the fuck?” Charlie exclaimed.

“Maybe you’d be able to understand if you had more.”

“Dennis, there’s something wrong with you,” Mac said. “And I don’t just mean your whole trauma thing, I mean you might genuinely be insane.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Are you joking? You want my friend to hurt himself, and you’re talking about how it’d be hot.”

“No, I mean, I would never hurt him,” Dennis said. “I just mean-”

“Shut up!” Mac shouted. “I know goddamn well what you mean, and I’m saying fuck off.” He shook his fist above his head. Dennis only laughed.

“You wanna fight me, Ronald McDonald?”

“Don’t call me that! Nobody calls me that!” Mac yelled. “And hell yeah I wanna fight you. I’m gonna fight you! Meet me on the soccer field after school!”

“No one’s fighting anyone,” Charlie said, but his voice was only drowned out by the shouts of Mac and Dennis.

“Cool! Yeah, I’m gonna fight you!” Dennis yelled. “And I’m gonna win, because I’ve achieved peak physical performance!”

“Sure,” Mac laughed. “I know karate.”

“We both know damn well that you do not know karate.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

The bell rang, and Charlie thanked whatever gods existed that this would end Mac and Dennis’ bickering.

“See you after school,” Mac said with a sneer.

“Don’t hold back,” Dennis replied.

Unsurprisingly, Mac, Charlie, and Dennis were the only ones on the soccer field after school. They weren’t nearly popular enough to have anyone else witness this fight, but Mac and Dennis both couldn’t help but be disappointed. This was going to be a damn good fight.

Charlie pulled Mac aside beforehand to give him somewhat of a pep talk.

“Alright, so I think this guy might actually be insane,” Charlie said. “So you better not hold back or he might actually kill you. Also, I’m pretty sure he has a knife on him.”

“Well, you’re the ref,” Mac said. “Tell him to drop the knife.”

Charlie nodded.

“Hey, Dennis,” he called. “Give me your knife.”

“Why?” Dennis asked, pulling the Swiss Army knife out of his pocket.

“‘Cause I don’t want you to stab my friend.”

“Fine,” Dennis agreed, nodding. He handed the knife to Charlie, and Charlie tried to stick it in the pocket of his ridiculously tight jeans before giving up and just holding it in his hand.

“Alright,” he said. “Make it quick, guys. If I’m not home soon my mom’s gonna file a missing person’s report.”

Mac and Dennis nodded and turned to each other, scowling.

“Wait,” Mac said. “What are the stakes?”

“The stakes?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah. What happens if I win?”

“Uh… if you win, then Dennis has to leave us alone forever. And if he wins, then I guess he doesn’t have to do that.”

“Alright,” Mac agreed. Dennis nodded along with him. Then they turned to face each other again, screaming madly as they ran at each other.

Mac threw a few punches, which only managed to graze Dennis’ cheeks before Dennis knocked him to the ground. He kneeled over Mac, snarling, digging his nails into his shoulders. Mac took another swing at him, but Dennis swatted it away, pinning Mac’s arm up by his head. Before Mac could throw another punch, Dennis swung his arms wildly, slashing Mac’s cheeks with his nails. He dug his knee into Mac’s stomach, and Mac groaned.

Except it wasn’t a groan of pain.

Dennis’ eyes widened. He looked down, still holding Mac’s arms above his head, and saw exactly what he expected.

“Dude,” he said softly, somewhat horrified. “Are you hard?”

“Shit,” Mac muttered. “Get off me. Fuck, fuck, get off me!”

“No! You’re just mad that you’re losing,” Dennis sneered. He dug his knee even harder into Mac’s stomach, revelling in the noises Mac made in response. He released one of Mac’s arms so he could claw at Mac’s neck, pulling his collar down just slightly and scratching harsh wounds into his flesh.

“Fuck!” Mac yelled. “Not fair. Not fair!” He slugged Dennis directly in the face with his newly freed hand, but Dennis barely reacted. Dennis swung at Mac in response, and Mac was powerless to stop it as his fist collided with his face. Dennis smiled, wiping a drop of blood from beneath his nose and grinding his knee into Mac’s stomach. Actually, he’d moved below Mac’s stomach. Mac fought back another groan.

“I… I surrender,” he said, his voice an embarrassingly pitiful whine. “You win.”

“Of course I do,” Dennis said, smiling. He cupped Mac’s face, running his thumb across the scratches. Then he stood, brushed the dirt of his pants, and walked away.

Mac laid on the ground for a few more minutes before getting up to walk home with Charlie. His pants still bulged, and his face was bright red.

“Dude,” Charlie said, glancing briefly at Mac’s jeans. “What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know,” Mac muttered. His left eye was beginning to swell up, but he found himself unable to care. There were far more pressing matters at hand, one of which was in his pants.

“I can’t believe you got a boner from Dennis beating you up,” Charlie said. He was grinning. Mac wanted to punch him.

“I did not!” Mac argued. “It just happens sometimes. You wouldn’t get it.”

“Oh, I think I get it,” Charlie laughed. “You’re gay.”

“What? No! I’m not gay! Dude, I’d never do that.”

“And you got off to him punching you! Not only are you gay, you’re a bottom.”

“Okay, how do you know what that means?”

“How do _you_ know what that means?”

“I don’t have to explain myself! I… need to learn about the enemy.”

“You need to learn about the enemy? Is that your way of saying you’ve seen gay porn?”

“It was for educational purposes only!”

“Sure, dude. Sure.”

“It was! I didn’t even get off to it!”

“Well, now that you’ve said that, I’m thinking you definitely got off.”

“So?”

“So you say a lot of homophobic shit for someone who gets off to gay porn.”

“Well, I’m not the one doing the gay stuff.”

“You just did some gay stuff. And got off to it.”

“Shut up! Shut up! I did not get off!”

“Sure, dude.”

“Look, just… don’t bring this up again, okay?”

“Yeah. Alright.”

Charlie managed to smirk at him all the way home. When he arrived at home, he stood on his porch and waved goodbye to Mac. From that distance it was hard to make out the true extent of the damage from the scratches, but he could tell that blood had been drawn from at least one. The ones on Mac’s neck looked especially brutal, appearing as thick, bright-red lines as Charlie stared at them from the porch. He laughed to himself. Dennis had been after the wrong guy the whole time. Turns out, Mac was the freak he was looking for all along 

Mac did wind up thinking about the fight again that night. He hated that he was thinking about it, he hated how it made him feel, he hated how his hand went to his pants when he thought about it. It was sinful, he thought. He couldn’t possibly be thinking about these things. Except he was.

He said an extra prayer before bed that night. It wasn’t like he was worried he was turning gay, but you can never be too careful, right?


	4. Chapter 4

Mac hands were sweating as he and Charlie walked to school. Everything seemed weird and confusing, and he didn’t know how to feel. Thankfully he hadn’t had any weird dreams about Dennis that night, or any other night that weekend,(his prayers had worked), but the memory of what had happened still echoed in his mind. There was nothing okay about it, and yet… he didn’t regret it. He felt guilty, he felt ashamed, he even felt sinful, but he didn’t regret the fight. He’d enjoyed it. It had felt oddly liberating, even when he was being pinned down. No one had ever touched him _so much_ before, and now that he had a taste of that, he needed more.

Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed Charlie’s hand, squeezing it tightly. Charlie blushed.

“Dude.”

Mac looked up at him, eyes wide, but he didn’t let go.

“Mac! What… what are you doing? Are you okay?”

“I had a weird night,” Mac mumbled.

“Is this about your fight with Dennis?”

“Uh… yeah. Kinda.”

“Dude, come on. I thought you said that kind of thing was a sin.”

“Well… I haven’t actually done anything.”

“You’ve watched gay porn.”

“For research! That was for research! I just… I think I’m just horny. I gotta get a girlfriend, dude.”

“There is no way you’re going to be able to get a girlfriend.”

“Why not?”

“Because everyone thinks your weird.”

“That’s mostly your fault, you know.”

“You hung out with me.”

“I… I did, yeah.”

“Look, dude, I think at this point you may as well just be gay. Like, you and Dennis basically dry humped yesterday, I feel like God is onto you.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I prayed a lot last night and I’m gonna do confession on Sunday and everything’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna forget about this.”

“You can. I won’t.”

Mac turned away, grumbling under his breath. He kept his hold on Charlie’s hand all the way to school for no real reason other than the fact that it felt good to be touched.

He sat down next to Dennis, who looked even more gross than usual. His face was a ghostly white, his hair was messy and tangled, and his head hung low over his desk. Mac had several questions for Dennis, but seeing him in that state brought one in particular to the forefront.

“Holy shit, dude. Are you alright?”

“Hm?” Dennis mumbled, turning to Mac. His eyes were baggy and dark, and a hint of a bruise had begun to form beneath one of them from their fight the previous day.

“You don’t look so good,” Mac commented.

“Oh. Sorry. I… haven’t eaten in a while. And I’m kinda hungover right now, so…”

“Dude, you look like you’re gonna die.”

“I’ve gone longer without eating. I’ll be fine.”

“Uh… okay.” Mac wanted to take Dennis’ word for it, but common sense suggested that it was unhealthy and probably unsafe to go without eating for half as long as Dennis had.

“You wanted to ask me something?” Dennis asked. “Or did you just wanna get mad at me for not eating or whatever?”

“Actually… I was meaning to ask you something. I figured you’d know this, ‘cause like, you’re already deep in the whole rabbit hole of sin-”

“What?” Dennis narrowed his eyes.

“Like, you know, after our fight yesterday. Did it make you feel kinda weird and fucked up and like you needed something but you couldn’t place what it was?”

“Are you trying to say you were horny?”

“No! I wasn’t horny, I just… okay, maybe I’m a little horny. But not for you. I just need to make out with someone and everything’ll go back to normal.”

“Who is going to make out with you?”

“See, that’s my problem. Like, I wanna make out with a hot girl, or at this point any girl at all to be honest, but I don’t know any girls. So I was thinking I could kiss Charlie, just cause he’d be willing to do it and like… it would just be out of necessity, and I would never do it again. I’m just worried that like… it’d be too gay.”

“Mac,” Dennis said, chuckling under his breath, “are you asking me if it’s gay for you to kiss a boy?”

“I mean, it’s Charlie…”

“Still very much gay. Now, you bang him, that’s where it might be kind of a gray area, but you’re not gonna bang him, are you?”

“Ew! No! I’m not gonna bang a dude. Especially not my best friend.”

“But you’re okay with kissing him?”

“I’m just gonna do it as practice for kissing girls. And so I don’t do something more stupid later. And I’m gonna pray a whole lot before and afterwards so God knows I’m not gay and everything’s all good.”

“Dude, you really gotta cool it with all the God stuff.”

“Well, try saying that when I get into Heaven and you don’t.”

“I’m serious, man. Shut up about God and Heaven and shit. I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Asshole,” Mac grumbled, turning away from Dennis. There was still the matter of how or if he was going to kiss Charlie, but Dennis obviously wasn’t going to be any help.

Mac was a little suspicious when Charlie was late catching up to him as he walked out of class. Obviously Dennis had said something to him, and whatever it was, it couldn’t have been constructive. Charlie approached him cautiously.

“So… uh…” he said meekly, keeping a pace or two behind Mac. “I heard you wanted to kiss me.”

Mac felt like tearing his hair out.

“God dammit, what did Dennis tell you?”

“That you were horny from yesterday, and you wanted to kiss me. Honestly I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to kiss Dennis, considering-”

“I don’t want to kiss either of you!” Mac exclaimed. “I just need to kiss someone, and I would honestly rather it be you than Dennis.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re… I mean, I’m not gay, but… look, Dennis just creeps me out, okay?”

“No, wait, it sounded like you were gonna say something nice to me,” Charlie said, grinning. He matched his pace with Mac so he could look him in the eye as he struggled to come up with a good answer.

“I was just gonna say that you’re like… less gross.”

“I haven’t bathed in three days. It’s clearly something else.”

“You what?” Mac shuddered, taking a step away from Charlie. “Gross, dude.”

“But you’d still kiss me over Dennis.”

“Well… yeah. It’s just that, you know…”

“No, I don’t, actually. What is it? You like my soft lips? My twinkling eyes?” Charlie laughed as he spoke, making Mac even more uncomfortable.

“Sure. That.”

Charlie was full-on cackling at this point.

“God dammit dude, that’s pretty fucking gay.”

“I am not gay! I just need to kiss someone, and you’re the only person who would kiss me and also who I wouldn’t be creeped out by!”

“Come on, man, you can admit it. I’m fine with being your first gay kiss or whatever.”

“Admit what? This… this isn’t gay. This is very straight. We’re just going to be two straight dudes kissing, okay? And then it’ll never happen again.”

“Well, I feel like now you’re just saying words and it doesn’t really mean anything.”

“Just go with it, alright?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Mac and Charlie continued to walk to class, staying silent for only a few moments before Charlie spoke up again.

“So do you actually wanna kiss me, or…”

“Yeah, yeah. We can go under the bleachers during PE.”

“I don’t think-”

“Just go with it!” Mac hissed. “It’s not a big deal, don’t make it a big deal!”

Charlie opted to stay quiet throughout their next class and while they walked to the gym for PE. Of course, Charlie was no stranger to sitting out during PE. He usually spent the duration of class sitting in a corner watching the class from a distance, or meandering along after everyone else during exercises. The coach was usually fine with letting Charlie sit out. Even when he was reluctant, Charlie still managed to convince him most of the time. After all, he had one advantage over the rest of the boys in the class in that he could actually use the excuse that he was on his period.

Mac and Charlie carefully avoided the watchful eye of the PE coach as they snuck under the bleachers. They sat on the waxed wood floor, pants already collecting dust, staring at each other pensively. It was hard to see underneath the bleachers, and even from where they sat a few feet apart it was hard to pick out the expressions on each other’s faces.

“So,” Charlie began carefully, “Are we gonna do this?”

“Just gimme a second first,” Mac insisted.

“Why?”

“I’m… going to pray.”

Charlie snorted.

“Don’t laugh!” Mac said as loudly as was safe. “We’re about to do something really bad, okay? So I’m asking God to spare both of our souls.”

“Well… thanks for including me in your prayer, I guess.”

“You’re welcome.” Mac held his hands at his sides, shaking nervously as he leaned in closer to Charlie. He felt so unprepared for what was about to happen, but a part of him was also excited. Mac tried so hard to silence that part of himself. In fact, the reason he was doing this was, in a way, to silence that part of himself. All he had to do was kiss Charlie, and then everything would go back to normal.

Charlie grabbed onto Mac’s hand and pulled him in close. Mac felt his face flush bright red, but he took comfort in knowing that Charlie couldn’t see it in the dim light under the bleachers. He cautiously pressed his lips to Charlie’s, and was abruptly met with Charlie’s tongue pushing into his mouth. This was when Mac realised he may have made a poor decision: Charlie had no fucking idea how to kiss. It took Charlie seconds to place a hand on Mac’s cheek, steadying his face and pulling him closer. Mac felt as if he was going to choke on Charlie’s tongue. It was too much. He shoved Charlie off of him.

“What?” Charlie whined. “I think I was just getting into the groove.”

“The what?” Mac asked, wiping spit from his lips. “You’re an awful kisser, man.”

“I thought that was what you’re supposed to do!”

“No, no, it’s more… gentle. Less tongue.”

“Like you’d know.”

“Let’s just try again. And this time, maybe don’t do any weird tongue shit. Just let me show you.”

“Okay,” Charlie agreed, shrugging. He had an inkling that Mac just wanted to kiss him, and he was cool with that. Mac had gone his whole life without even admitting to being attracted to guys, maybe making out with him would actually be helpful.

This time, Mac took Charlie’s face in his hands, cupping his cheeks gently as he pulled him in close. By now the two of them were practically in each other’s laps, and Charlie had placed his hands on Mac’s thighs in an attempt to steady himself. Mac sloppily dragged his lips across Charlie’s, occasionally slipping his tongue in and causing Charlie to jump in surprise. Eventually, Charlie got the idea and began to mirror his actions, becoming slightly more aggressive as the kiss continued on.

Fuck, it went on for a while. The two of them were actually making out. This was not Mac’s plan at all-he’d just wanted a quick kiss, maybe a little tongue for good measure, but this was beyond that.

“This is gay!” Mac exclaimed, snapping his head back and breaking off the kiss. He was sweating and breathing heavily, but he convinced himself it didn’t mean anything.

“Uh… yeah,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. “You just made out with your best friend.”

“Oh my God, I did,” Mac muttered under his breath, desperately crossing himself and avoiding Charlie’s gaze. “Oh my God, that was… that was…”

“Awesome?” Charlie grinned.

“No! Not awesome! We’re sinners, Charlie! We’re gonna go to hell!”

“Okay, but now that you know you’re going to hell and it doesn’t matter if you’re gay, can you at least admit that was kind of awesome?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mac mumbled.

“Come on, man. You sell pot, you just made out with your best friend, you always sit around in the handicapped stall of the restroom even though handicapped people need to use that. If Hell is real, you’re definitely going. So can you just stop being an idiot and admit that maybe you like dudes? Maybe just a little?”

Mac stood up suddenly, brushing the dust off his pants and looking down at Charlie with a stoic gaze.

“No. I can’t give into sin that easily, dude. I have a strong constitution.”

Charlie rolled his eyes. He stood up, more carefully than Mac had so as to not hit his head on the bleachers. The two of them slowly emerged, walking quietly into the crowd of other kids so as not to cause a disturbance. No one in the gym class asked any questions, which both of them were grateful for. Neither one knew how exactly they were going to explain what just happened.

Dennis, on the other hand, was full of questions.

He had a demented smirk on his face as he sat down with Mac and Charlie at lunch. The menace in his eyes was intensified by the increasingly gaunt look of his face. He was becoming borderline disgusting to look at, either from the not eating or the alcohol or (most likely) a horrific combination of the two.

“You guys kiss?” he asked, his voice rough and slurred.

“Dude,” Mac said, more concerned for Dennis’ health than angry at his question. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, yeah, maybe it doesn’t,” Dennis mumbled. “But did you, though?”

“Fine, yeah, we… we kissed a little. But I feel like there are more important issues right now than whether or not your friends kissed. Like maybe, I dunno…”

“You look like shit,” Charlie interjected.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that-” Mac argued.

“Okay, but I would! Dennis, you look like one of those starving orphan kids. Less dirty though.”

“Well… you’re literally an orphan,” Dennis grumbled.

“I don’t think I’m an orphan,” Charlie said, confused.

“He’s not,” Mac agreed. “Possibly a bastard, but he still lives with his mom.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Charlie yelled. “Seriously, man, what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Dennis replied. “Just… just a little hungover.”

“You want some of my sandwich?” Charlie held out the other half of his PB&J, which had been cut into perfect triangles by his mother.

“Nah, dude, that’s… that’s your lunch.”

“I’m okay though! Plus, you don’t have anything to eat, so I figure I’d give you some of mine.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Dennis said, growing angrier. His voice was more harsh, but it was also disturbingly weak, barely above a whisper. “I don’t _want_ your stupid sandwich.”

“Well… I think I have a few dollars in my pocket. You can buy something.”

“No!” Dennis slammed a fist into the table. “I don’t wanna eat.”

Charlie stared at him blankly.

“Why?”

“‘Cause… it’s better that way. My mom says I gotta get rid of all my baby fat or no one’s ever gonna love me.”

Mac and Charlie just stared at him.

“That’s… kinda fucked up,” Mac said.

“Whatever,” Dennis muttered.

“Seriously dude, don’t listen to her,” Mac insisted. “Just take Charlie’s sandwich. It’ll be fine. You’ll feel better.”

“Really?”

“Uh, yeah, dude. Food is awesome.”

“I… I dunno.”

“Mac’s right,” Charlie said, setting the sandwich half down in front of Dennis. Dennis picked it up gingerly and took a few meagre bites before setting it back down. Mac and Charlie smiled at him. He didn’t smile back, only nodded slowly and stared off into the distance.

“You know,” Mac said, “my mom is really bad at hiding the alcohol in our house.”

“Yeah?” Dennis replied.

“I mean, if you wanna come get drunk with me and Charlie after school today…”

“Really?” Dennis asked, looking up at Mac with wide eyes. “What… what do you have?”

“Dude, honestly? Probably whatever you want.”

“Cool.” Dennis smiled wryly at that.

“You can walk home with us,” Charlie said.

“I… I don’t think I live by you guys.”

“Nah, dude, you’d come to Mac’s house with us! And then, like, I dunno, you call your mom or something to come pick you up.”

“Well… I don’t want my mom to know I’m at Mac’s house getting drunk.”

“Then don’t call her!” Charlie said excitedly. “You can become a missing child.”

“How?”

“Easy. You don’t come home after school, and then in a few hours your mom assumes you got kidnapped or murdered and she calls the police, and then when you get home she remembers how much she loves you.”

“Have you… done this?”

“Lots of times. I would stay over at Mac’s house a lot, back when my uncle was staying over.”

“Oh. Oh… yeah.” Dennis looked over at Charlie. His eyes had gone sullen, distant, and he picked at the scab on his wrist nervously. Dennis felt bad about ever bringing anything up, especially considering Charlie’s breakdown the day before.

“It was a good system,” Charlie muttered.

Dennis nodded. A wave of pity hit him hard in the chest. Or maybe it was empathy. The only difference between him and Charlie is that Charlie could go home at the end of the day to his adoring mother, who would love him and care about him even if she wasn’t aware of everything he was going through. Dennis had none of that. All he had to come home to was more abuse from his parents, and even his sister. There was no comfort to be had in that house, with the exception of a few stray razor blades and the occasional unattended bottle of alcohol.

He was hopeful as he followed Mac and Charlie on the way home from school, allowing himself to think for a second that maybe Mac’s home was the sanctuary he had been missing.

It was immediately apparent that this would not be the case.

Mac and Charlie bounded through the front door excitedly, but Dennis stayed back, suddenly confronted by the overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke and dirty socks. He followed Mac and Charlie, holding his hand over his mouth as he did so and setting foot into the dusty living room. The house was significantly smaller and dirtier than his own, but that was to be expected. Not everyone had a maid. Or a father. But the condition of Mac’s home seemed especially disheveled, as if his mother had given up on cleaning it years ago.

Mac opened a cupboard above one of the kitchen counters to reveal an expansive collection of various alcohols. He passed a few bottles down to Charlie, who opened one and took a hefty sip directly from the container. After a few coughs (whatever it was had been strong), he offered it to Dennis.

“Don’t you wanna like… mix that with something?” Dennis asked.

“Mix it? With what?” Charlie said, confused. “I don’t wanna water it down.”

“You’re literally gonna burn your throat if you keep drinking it straight from the bottle like that.”

“I don’t care.” Charlie took another sip, unleashing another bout of coughs.

“Yeah, come on, Dennis,” Mac said, taking a sip from his own bottle. “Just go for it.”

He shoved another bottle across the counter toward Dennis, who took it carefully. Dennis read the label. It was whisky. People drink straight whiskey, right? He shrugged before opening it and carefully taking a sip.

It didn’t taste good, and it stung his throat a little on the way down, but Dennis figured he’d get used to it. He drank more, watching Mac and Charlie out of the corner of his eye as they alternated between coughing and drinking. Soon the coughing fits morphed into laughs, and before too long Charlie had set down his bottle and was rolling around on the floor. Dennis smiled. What an idiot.

“I’m cold,” Charlie sputtered out between laughs.

“How’re you cold?” Mac slurred. “It’s like, not even winter.”

“I’m gonna heat up my pants,” Charlie announced.

Mac and Dennis nodded, too foggy from the alcohol at first to realise what was about to happen. Then, as Dennis briefly came to his senses, he opened his mouth to shout in protest. But it was too late. Charlie had taken off his jeans and was standing in the kitchen in his underwear, still laughing his head off.

“Dude, your pants are off,” Dennis said, somewhat shocked.

“I know,” Charlie replied. “I’m gonna warm ‘em up. Watch.”

Once again, before Dennis could say anything, Charlie opened the microwave and shoved his jeans inside. Then he turned it on and stood back to watch, clearly proud of his innovation.

Then there was a loud pop, and sparks and smoke coming from the microwave.

“Holy shit!” Mac exclaimed. “Turn it off, turn it off!”

Charlie had now begun to freak out as well and leapt to turn off the microwave. He pressed every button at least once, which only lead to more time being added to the microwave clock. The pants were now on fire, and Mac grabbed a bowl from one of the cabinets to fill with water in preparation for when Charlie finally removes them from the microwave. At last Charlie decided to try the door handle, revealing the smoldering wreckage of his jeans, which Mac promptly tossed the bowl of water on. This resulted in a few more sparks, but it did succeed in putting out the fire. Dennis did nothing to help, only standing on the other side of the kitchen smiling at the whole situation.

Charlie held up what remained of his jeans with an irritated look on his face.

“I can’t wear these,” he said matter-of-factly.

“You really can’t,” Mac agreed. “I can get you another pair if you want.”

“Nah, I don’t want your pants,” Charlie argued.

“So you’re just gonna stay in your underwear?”

“Yup.”

Charlie hopped up on the kitchen counter, his boxer shorts riding up almost to dangerous levels. He was still smiling to himself.

“I should probably be heading home soon,” Dennis said, somewhat ruining the moment. “Do you have a phone I could use to call my parents?”

“Nah, forget that,” Mac said. “Just stay over! Become a missing child, like Charlie was talking about.”

“Is Charlie gonna stay over too?”

“Nah,” Charlie replied. “I actually need to go home and do homework.”

“How do you have homework?” Dennis asked. “You can’t even read.”

“I’m learning,” Charlie retorted.

“Seriously though, are you just gonna walk home in your underwear?” Mac asked.

“Yeah, probably,” Charlie replied. He slid off the counter and went to put his shoes back on.

“Please don’t walk home in your underwear,” Mac sighed.

“It’ll be fine,” Charlie argued, picking up his backpack and walking out the door. He had left his ruined jeans on the floor of Mac’s kitchen, but if he had noticed, he didn’t seem to care.

Dennis stared at Mac blankly.

“He does that sometimes,” Mac said. Dennis nodded, still thoroughly confused.

“So… I can stay over at your house?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Sure,” Mac replied. “I think there’s an air mattress somewhere in this house. You can sleep on that.”

Dennis nodded. It would be weird sleeping over with Mac. When he thought about it, he realised he’d never actually been invited to a sleepover before. Kind of odd that his first sleepover was in high school, but whatever. So many weird fucked-up things had happened to him that semester, so he supposed this may as well happen too.

As Mac lied in his bed and Dennis lied on the beat-up air mattress on the floor, Dennis turned towards Mac as much as he could and asked a question Mac had been dreading.

“So,” he said smugly. “You never told me how that kiss was.”

Mac started sweating almost immediately.

“I mean… it wasn’t that special,” he muttered.

“Come on, man. That was your first kiss! Don’t you have any feelings about it at all?”

“Look… can I trust you?”

“Sure, dude.”

“Seriously. You gotta promise not to tell anyone this, especially not Charlie. No one can know.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Mac sat up in bed and looked over at Dennis. He held his knees to his chest, truly contemplating what he felt for the first time that day. Even in his current half-drunk haze, he was still shaken up by the event, or more so how he had felt during it.

“It was amazing,” he whispered. “Dude, it was so fucking awesome. I…” Mac trailed off, having no real excuse for how he felt. He knew he wasn’t supposed to feel like this, he knew that deep down and it was eating away at him, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“That’s good!” Dennis exclaimed quietly. “It’s supposed to feel good. It’s kissing.”

“No, no, you don’t get it. It would’ve been great if it was a girl, but… I kissed a dude, man! I kissed my best friend! And I kinda wanna do it again. It’s not good, it’s not okay, this shouldn’t be happening, alright?”

“You really need to stop with the whole gay thing,” Dennis sighed. “So you found out you like to kiss dudes. Awesome! The whole Catholic guilt thing you’ve got going is gonna tear you apart, dude. Just forget about it and kiss more dudes. You’ll feel better.”

“Are you saying I should kiss _you?_ ” Mac’s eyes widened.

“I mean, if you want to.”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“I promise.”

Mac slid off the bed and onto Dennis’ air mattress, playing out the same routine he had with Charlie. Except Dennis was a much better kisser than Charlie. He moved his mouth in all the right ways, and Mac didn’t feel like choking at all. Fuck, he had to stop doing this. Or at least, he had to stop enjoying this so much.

Dennis laced his fingers through Mac’s hair, holding him close. Mac practically broke down in tears. He fell into Dennis’ lap, forcing Dennis to let go of him. Heavy sobs coursed through his body.

“I feel like a whore,” he whined. “I mean, I’ve made out with two of my friends in the same day. Holy fuck, I’m going to Hell, aren’t I. Oh my god, oh fuck.”

“No, no, Mac, it’s okay,” Dennis whispered. “You’re not a whore. Just calm down, okay?”

“I’m… no, I can’t calm down. I ruined everything.”

“No, you didn’t. It’s gonna be fine, okay? You’re not going to Hell.”

“How would you know?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t think God works like that.”

“Okay.” Mac collapsed on the air mattress next to Dennis, and Dennis lied down facing him. He pulled the blanket over both of them, and watched Mac as he fell asleep. It was likely that they both would remember none of this in the morning when they came out of their drunken states, but in the meantime Dennis could savor the moment he and Mac had shared. The kiss was really something special, sweet and euphoric in a way that Dennis had never felt before. Dennis watched Mac sleep for longer than he would’ve liked to admit, until he finally drifted off himself.

He didn’t have any of his usual nightmares that night, which seemed weird until he woke up in the middle of the night to find Mac’s arm around him. Dennis smiled and went back to sleep. Maybe he wouldn’t remember this in the morning, but he really, really hoped he would.


	5. Chapter 5

Mac awoke with Dennis’s arms wrapped around him in one of the sappiest, grossest hugs he’d ever experienced. He quickly shook him off, but Dennis responded by scooting closer.

“Dennis, fuck off,” Mac hissed, slapping him softly in the face. Dennis opened his eyes, looking up at Mac groggily.

“We slept together,” he said, smiling stupidly up at Mac. Mac groaned.

“Don’t say that,” he said firmly. “We slept in the same bed. That’s all.”

“Why didn’t we sleep in your bed then?” Dennis asked coyly. “You came down here during the night. You wanted to see me.”

“Oh god,” Mac muttered.

“I kissed you,” Dennis said sweetly.

“In my _sleep?_ Dude, that’s gross! Ew!” Mac exclaimed, scrambling out of bed.

“No, you were awake,” Dennis assured him. “Probably very drunk. But awake.”

“I’m still not okay with that!”

“So… you don’t remember anything about last night?”

“I remember Charlie taking his pants off in my kitchen. And… I remember setting up the air mattress. That’s about all I’ve got.”

“You don’t remember kissing me? Or crying because you thought you were going to hell for wanting to kiss boys? Or sleeping on the air mattress right next to me?”

“Nothing, dude. I’ve got bits and pieces. Those things aren’t in any of my bits and pieces.”

“Wow. You really need to learn how to handle your liquor, man.”

“Are you kidding? You drank more than I did. If anything, you’re the one who should’ve forgotten most of the night.”

“No,” Dennis said softly. “I… I remember everything.”

“Dude, I think you might be an alcoholic.”

“I can’t be an alcoholic. I’m fourteen.”

“How often do you drink?”

“Whenever I find alcohol. And when I do I usually go through… how do you measure alcohol, shots? I go through a good few shots before I start getting woozy.”

“Woozy, like, drunk?”

“Nah, man. Woozy like when you eat something funny and it makes your stomach all bubbly and your throat kinda like… burning.”

“I mean, if you’re drinking that much alcohol on an empty stomach, I feel like you’re gonna get sick. I just don’t see why you keep doing it.”

“Come on, man. I’m sure Charlie’s already told you my life story. I do it for the same reason I cut myself. It’s a… distraction. And I like how it feels.”

Mac nodded.

“You’re definitely an alcoholic,” he concluded. “You’re fourteen and you’ve already managed to lose your virginity, develop an alcohol addiction, and commit an act of homosexuality. You’ve secured your place in Hell, but I feel like there’s some prize for just how quickly you did it.”

“You know I didn’t want that first one.” Dennis stared deep into Mac’s eyes. His gaze was sharp and angry, but deep down Mac could see pain. “Mac… I’d do almost anything to make it so that didn’t happen. You know that, right?”

“Still,” Mac shrugged.

“I’m not kidding!” Dennis exclaimed. He latched a hand around Mac’s throat. Mac choked out a gasp, more out of surprise than out of pain.

“Dennis, you don’t get it.”

“What about Charlie?” Dennis shouted. “What about him, huh? You think he’s gonna go to Hell too, just because his uncle screwed him when he was a kid?”

Mac swallowed hard, remembering Charlie’s dark, sunken eyes from back when he’d been living with his uncle. He remembered how the two of them would walk to school in silence, and Charlie would cry into Mac’s jacket, finally able to let his feelings out after a night of abuse. He remembered Charlie clinging to him by the end of the day, begging to be able to come over so he wouldn’t have to go home so soon. How he’d once slept on that air mattress alongside Mac’s bed, finally able to fall asleep knowing that he was safe from the horror living in his own bedroom. How he’d hide in the closet when his mother finally came to Mac’s door, asking if anyone had seen her son. Every time, Mac desperately wanted to tell her to get lost, that Charlie wasn’t there, and that he wasn’t coming home. And every time, Mrs. Kelly had stormed into his house and searched every nook and cranny for her “sweet gingerbread boy”. Charlie would always be found eventually, and he’d always stare at Mac with desperate, pleading eyes as his mother carried him away in her arms back to his personal Hell on Earth.

“I don’t want him to,” Mac admitted, struggling to speak through Dennis’ chokehold. “I just think… that’s what happens.”

“So he’s just fucked?” Dennis asked. His voice broke, and tears poured down his cheeks, but he kept his grip on Mac’s neck. “You think any creeper can really just go up to a kid and… take away his chance at salvation forever? Just like that?”

“You could pray. You could go to confession. But I feel like you wouldn’t do that.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t. That’s idiotic.”

Mac nodded solemnly.

“Charlie didn’t do it either,” he said. “He didn’t like how dark and enclosed the confession booth was, and he didn’t like talking about what happened to him. I still prayed for him, but… it was really bad. I don’t think there’s any hope, man.”

“I tried to tell you last night, but I guess you don’t remember,” Dennis mused. He loosened his grip around Mac’s throat, choosing instead to grab onto his shoulders to keep him close. “I think you’re wrong about how all this God shit works. I think… I think me and Charlie are gonna be okay. And I think you’re allowed to kiss boys if you want.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Mac replied. “But I don’t wanna kiss boys.”

“You’ve kissed a lot of boys for someone who doesn’t want to kiss boys.”

“Shut up!”

“Mac…” Dennis said softly, brushing a lock of hair out of Mac’s face. “I want you to be happy. You still have a chance at that. Not in the afterlife, but like, here.”

“And you don’t?”

“You said it yourself. I was raped, Mac. I’m an alcoholic, I cut myself, and you and Charlie are the only friends I have. And we barely know each other. I think I’m pretty fucked, in the real world and in whatever afterlife there is.”

“I mean… I wish I could say you’re wrong, but I think you’re right.”

“Exactly. Hell, I bet my parents didn’t even notice I didn’t come home last night.”

“I’m sure they noticed. No way they didn’t, right? There’ll probably be police at the school looking for you.”

“Doubt it,” Dennis sighed.

They walked to school, picking up Charlie along the way. Dennis was still wearing the same sweaty clothes he’d had on yesterday. It was humiliating, but he couldn’t exactly go home now, and he definitely wasn’t about to put on one of Mac’s outfits. Cutoff sleeves were idiotic, and skinny jeans would pinch at his stomach too much. The thought of it made him a little sick.

Charlie kicked at the rocks on the sidewalk as the trio strolled in silence towards the school. Mac didn’t talk because he felt like the moment he opened his mouth, all his impure thoughts would come spilling out. Dennis didn’t talk because he was feeling overwhelmed after basically realizing that he’d never be happy. Charlie didn’t talk because no one else was talking.

Fear welled up in Mac’s stomach as they entered the building. _What if someone had seen him kissing Charlie? What if everyone knew how sinful he was?_ He shoved his hands as far into the pockets of his tight jeans as they would go. This was his dirty little secret. Or at least it was his and Dennis’ and Charlie’s dirty little secret.

“You’re not worried at all?” he whispered to Charlie. It was barely audible, as he wasn’t exactly leaning in close to Charlie for fear of someone seeing them.

“What? No, I’m not worried,” Charlie said at full volume. Mac shushed him aggressively.

“What if someone saw us kissing!” Mac hissed. “Dude, they’re gonna think we’re gay!”

“They wouldn’t be wrong,” Dennis interjected. This earned a snort from Charlie, but Mac was having none of it.

“We are not gay! We’re not doing this!”

“Speak for yourself, man,” Charlie replied.

“You’re not saying your gay, are you?” Mac had a horrified look on his face.

“I mean, I liked the kiss. Does that make me gay?”

Mac’s mouth hung open in shock. He said nothing, only staring at Charlie for the remainder of their trek to class. Charlie thought nothing of it. It wasn’t like he was in love with Mac or anything. They’d been best friends their whole lives, that would just be weird.

Dennis waited until the bell rang before sitting down next to Charlie in the back of the class. Charlie had begun to expect such behavior; Dennis always seemed to have something to say to him after class, and it was never something Charlie really wanted to hear. But there was no point in ignoring him.

“We can agree that Mac is gay, right?” Dennis said smugly.

“Sure, dude,” Charlie muttered.

“Y’know, I kissed him last night,” Dennis bragged. He had a sinister smirk on his face which terrified Charlie.

“No way,” Charlie argued. “He already kissed me. Why would he kiss you?”

“I mean, he was _really_ drunk.”

“But like… what about his whole Catholic guilt thing?”

“Oh, he definitely still has that going, but he’s also definitely into kissing guys.”

“Maybe he’s having some kind of psychotic breakdown.”

“I think if he was having a… uh… psychotic _break_ , he’d be doing a lot more than kissing us.”

“So what do we do?”

“Nothing. We just hope at some point he gets over the Catholic guilt thing and starts kissing us again.”

“Uh, speak for yourself, dude. Kissing is weird.”

“Really? I thought Mac was a great kisser, honestly. I mean, I haven’t had much experience, but it felt good.”

“Ew, man. That’s gross.”

“Dude, he thought you were good! You’re telling me you didn’t enjoy it at all?”

Charlie paused.

“He thought it was good?”

“Yeah, dude! He told me not to tell you, but I thought you might like to know.”

“I thought I was horrible,” Charlie said, smiling to himself. “I thought it was really weird, but like… maybe that’s just what it’s supposed to be like?”

“If it was anything like my kiss with Mac, I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s supposed to be like.”

“Wow. I mean… that’s kind of cool.”

“You really thought you were doing something weird?”

“Well, he made me stop when I tried it the first time.”

“Do you wanna show me what you did? I can tell you if it’s weird.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow quizzically. He stuck out his tongue as if he was licking something invisible. Dennis couldn’t help but laugh.

“I mean, like, on me,” he chuckled. Charlie turned bright red.

“What if someone sees us?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Charlie cautiously scooted towards Dennis. He turned towards him, his face still bright red, not making eye contact. Dennis put a hand under Charlie’s chin, turning his head upwards so their eyes met.

“Are you ready?” Dennis asked, his voice a deep whisper.

“Ready?” Charlie shot back in confusion.

He didn’t even get a chance to close his mouth before Dennis had stuck his tongue into it, nearly knocking him down with the force of the attack. And then Dennis did knock him down, completely on purpose, his hands on Charlie’s shoulders and pinning him to the floor. The new angle allowed him to sink into the kiss, his lips and tongue all over Charlie’s poor little mouth. Charlie felt tears coming to his eyes, but he couldn’t exactly figure out why. This was wrong, deeply wrong, but not in the way Mac probably would’ve thought it was wrong. He felt sick. Dennis’ teeth brushed his lips, and Charlie was filled with intense dread just before he clamped his jaw shut.

The bite didn’t hurt. In fact, there was barely any pressure at all. His lip probably wouldn’t even swell. But that little bite was all it took to push Charlie over the edge, to convince him that there was something very very wrong about the situation. He screamed, but it was muffled by Dennis’ mouth. He reached out his hands and tried to get Dennis off of his face, but because of the way Dennis had pinned him down he couldn’t do anything.

Dennis heard the scream. He felt Charlie struggle. But he didn’t care. It wasn’t even that he was enjoying the kiss too much to stop; he was barely even paying attention to the kiss at all. His focus had shifted to his hands, and how they dug into Charlie’s shoulders and pinned him to the tile floor and how Charlie couldn’t escape no matter what.

Everything made sense now. For the first time since that day in the library, Dennis felt okay. He felt good, even, it felt good to do this to a person. To control someone, to pin them down, to refuse to let them escape no matter how much they screamed. It was human nature, he decided, to want to do this to someone. What happened to him in the library wasn’t rape, it wasn’t some horrible unspeakable act of cruelty. It was human nature, and now it was Dennis’ turn to carry out that nature.

“Dennis! Dennis, what the fuck are you doing to him?”

Dennis gasped, feeling his whole body jerk upwards as he was torn off of Charlie. He recognized Mac’s voice, now softer as he kneeled next to Charlie in an attempt to comfort him.

Charlie was a mess. His face was bright red, soaked with tears and spit, and his bottom lip had swollen from all of Dennis’ biting. He was gripping Mac’s hand tightly, still crying. Mac stared at Dennis as he stroked Charlie’s hair in a desperate attempt to calm him.

“Dennis,” he said softly, sounding disappointed as well as scared. “What did you do?”

Dennis didn’t know. He legitimately didn’t know. Everything had kind of faded once he let his instincts take over, he could have killed Charlie and he wouldn’t have known until Mac walked in. That was a scary thought, but… Dennis didn’t hate it.

“He… he…” Charlie gasped, still barely coherent.

“Charlie, buddy, you need to tell me what he did,” Mac said sweetly. Then, glaring at Dennis, he added, “So I can remind him of it while I kick his ass”

Charlie pointed to his mouth, wiping spit from his lips as he did so.

“He just kissed you? That’s all?”

“He was holding me down,” Charlie cried. “I-I couldn’t move.”

“He didn’t touch you, did he?”

“Touch me? Like… like…”

Charlie looked over at Dennis, his eyes wide with terror. Dennis’ heart dropped. He knew exactly who Charlie was thinking about when he looked at him. Maybe it was fucked up after all. If Charlie, who really was genuinely traumatized by what happened to him, could draw even the slightest comparison between Dennis’ instincts and the awful things that his uncle had done to him…

“No, he didn’t do that,” Charlie muttered. Dennis breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank God,” Mac whispered. “I mean, it’s still fucked up, but I’m so glad he didn’t…”

“I was so scared, dude. You were right. I should’ve stayed away from him. I’m so sorry.”

“Come on,” Mac said, patting Charlie gently on the back. “Let’s go to class before people start coming in.”

Charlie nodded, still holding Mac’s hand as the two rushed out of the classroom.

Dennis was left sitting on the floor, staring off into space. He was confused again, it didn’t really make sense. Holding Charlie down had felt so good, but for Charlie it had been painful. Maybe because Charlie was already damaged, but maybe because it was just a fucked up thing to do.

Control. That’s what it was. Control felt so good. Controlling someone else was euphoric. Still, while Dennis may not have had another opportunity to do that (and even if he did he still had enough of a conscience left that he probably wouldn’t do it), he had other ways of experiencing true control. He dug through his pockets for his Swiss Army knife as he ran into the bathroom, locking himself in a stall and then sitting down on the toilet, pants still on. As he dragged the blade through his skin, he felt something new. For the first time, Dennis really felt like he deserved to be hurt like this. What he did to Charlie was awful. He hurt his friend. One of his only friends ever. And now he’d pushed everyone away, and he had no one.

Mac was still squeezing Charlie’s hand tightly when they walked into their next class. Charlie was understandably shaken.

“That makes both of us,” Mac remarked coldly.

“What?” Charlie half-mumbled, half-sobbed.

“He’s kisses both of us. He kissed me in my sleep, and then he borderline molested you.”

“I just… don’t understand how he could do that,” Charlie whined.

“Why?”

“Because he knows how bad it feels.”

Mac swallowed hard. This wasn’t his area of expertise. Part of him wanted to recommend that Charlie talk to a therapist. It would make sense, after all, he probably had a half-dozen or so nasty mental disorders chewing up his brain from all the shit he went through. If what had just happened hadn’t just happened, he might have recommended that Charlie talk to Dennis about it. He was right, after all. Dennis should know how bad it felt, what kind of damage that does to a person, and yet Mac knew Dennis would never understand. Charlie was special, uniquely damaged in a way that Dennis couldn’t or wouldn’t understand.

“He’s a bastard,” Mac decided. “He’s not like you, his soul’s all corrupted or something.”

“But I’m a bastard. And I’m going to hell.”

“What makes you say that?”

“My dad isn’t married to my mom and according to you I’ve technically had sex before marriage.”

“Not that kind of bastard,” Mac laughed. “I mean he’s an asshole! He’s a monster, dude. We should never have trusted him.”

“It’s my fault,” Charlie whined, facing the floor.

“No, man. I invited him over yesterday. I… got a boner while fighting him. We both wanted to trust him. But you just can’t with some people.”

“You get a boner when you trust someone?” Charlie laughed.

“What? No, that’s… that’s not what I meant at all!” Mac playfully punched Charlie on the arm. They both had a good laugh at that, but the seriousness of what had just happened still hung heavy over the both of them.

Neither were particularly surprised when Dennis showed up at their table during lunch.

Mac immediately jumped to Charlie’s defense, practically leaping from the table and attacking Dennis. He might’ve wrestled him to the floor had they not been in a crowded lunchroom (and had Mac not been so terrified of another embarrassing boner).

“Dennis, you fucker,” Mac growled. He latched a hand around Dennis’ throat, stronger and harder than Dennis had done to him that morning. “I thought I told you to stay the fuck away from him!”

“I… don’t think you said that,” Dennis choked out.

“Well, I’m saying it right now!” Mac screamed. “You hurt him, man! You… you hurt him! Don’t you know what you were doing?”

“I know, Mac,” Dennis muttered, trying to elbow Mac off of himself. “I’m sorry, okay? I just… got caught up in the moment.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, okay? It just felt like when I was kissing him, and he was crying and all that, like… that was right. That’s how it’s supposed to feel because he was feeling the same way I felt, the way I felt in that supply closet with that librarian.”

“Dennis, that was rape.”

“Yeah, okay, but… what if it wasn’t? What if that’s what true intimacy is? One person shaking and crying, and the other on the greatest power trip of their life.”

“No. Absolutely not. What happened to you was awful, and what you did to Charlie was awful! You’re a horrible person, and I hate you!” Mac’s voice broke, tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t know why it hurt so much to tell Dennis he hated him, but it felt awful. Despite how depraved Dennis was, there was something distinctly vulnerable about him that made Mac hesitant about doing anything that might hurt him.

Dennis buried his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Mac,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just… miss feeling good. And doing that to Charlie felt so, so good.” He whispered the last part so only Mac could hear it. Mac felt sick. He tightened his hand around Dennis’ throat, digging his nails in, nearly cutting off Dennis’ airway. Dennis choked softly, trying desperately to get a breath in.

“Okay, this is extremely hot,” he muttered, “but I’m gonna need to breathe at some point.”

“Ew,” Mac grumbled, releasing Dennis’ throat and backing away.

“You know,” Dennis said, grinning. “Given that I won that fight the other day, you can’t really get rid of me that easily.”

“I don’t care. After what you did to Charlie, you’re lucky I don’t stab you.”

“Come on, guys,” Charlie whined. “Stop fighting. I’ll be fine.”

“Charlie…” Mac said sweetly, sitting down next to his friend at the lunch table and looking him in the eyes. “Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. I just got freaked out is all. It wasn’t that bad.”

“You can’t let him do that to you, man. It’s fucked.”

“I mean, yeah, but I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

Mac nodded, feeling sick at the thought of that. Dennis was such a monster. Only a monster could make someone feel like that.

Dennis sat down across from Mac and Charlie, reaching his bony hands across the table. Mac shrunk away, pulling Charlie with him.

“I’m sorry,” Dennis muttered, collapsing onto the table. “I swear, I didn’t want to hurt you. I just… needed to _feel_ something again. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re weird,” Charlie said casually, already pulling a cheese sandwich out of his lunch bag. It wasn’t that he had forgiven Dennis for what he’d done, but ignoring it felt easier than dwelling on it. He already had enough trauma to dwell on, adding Dennis to the mix didn’t make it any easier.

“Seriously, man,” Mac sighed. “Will you stop being a dramatic little baby about it and just… be normal? For once?”

Dennis was tempted to bust out some extremely edgy ramblings (“I’m _damaged,_ Mac! I can never be normal again as long as I’m hurting this much!”), but he figured it would only worsen the situation, so he decided against it. Instead, he just nodded, leaning back in his seat and watching Charlie devour his sandwich like an animal. It reminded him of how long it had been since he’d eaten-his stomach had been so full of alcohol he’d been able to forget, but hunger was beginning to ebb at his stomach. He forced the feelings back down, running his fingers under his shirt just above his waistline where his stomach bulged ever so slightly, the reminder of that alone enough to put him off a meal.

He actually did avoid Mac and Charlie for the rest of the day, more so because he was tired of getting yelled at by Mac than because he felt bad for Charlie. It wasn’t that he wasn’t sorry for what he did, but it had just been so worth it, he felt he couldn’t justify himself to Mac. The sensation of being able to control someone like that was unparalleled, but the thought of what he’d actually done to Charlie made him sick. Sure, it wasn’t as bad as what happened to him, and it was nothing in comparison to what happened to Charlie, but Mac was right-it was a heinous thing to do to another human being. He deserved to feel awful about it.

Upon arriving at home, Dennis retreated silently to his bedroom to atone for his sins. No one asked him where he’d been. No one even noticed he’d ever left the house in the first place. It was what he expected, but it still hurt a little bit.

The atonement was a procedure Dennis was quite familiar with. He flicked open his Swiss Army knife, rolled up his sleeves to reveal already mutilated forearms, and slashed at the few patches of bare skin he had left. Blood dropped onto his sheets, but he knew no one would notice-a few dried and fading bloodstains already adorned his pillowcase, and no one seemed to have cared. He let the streaks of blood dry on his arms, too tired to wash them off. Sitting up made him lightheaded. It briefly crossed his mind that maybe that meant he should eat something, but he decided he’d worry about that tomorrow. It had only been what, two days? Three? And he’d had alcohol, so what was the harm in waiting another night?

Dennis fell asleep before even speaking to his family, still in his clothes, blood still staining his arms. It was better that way. He couldn’t bear to face anyone like this.

Meanwhile, Charlie couldn’t sleep. He lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling, picking at the scab on his arm. The thought of Dennis pinning him down, practically laying on top of him, and kissing him like that just wouldn’t leave his mind. Dennis didn’t kiss like Mac. It wasn’t gentle and sweet and shy, it was aggressive and horrible. Charlie could still feel the disgusting texture of his tongue sliding into his mouth, almost slug-like in its sliminess and thickness as it burrowed its way into his mouth, threatening to hit the back of his throat and make him choke. The sensation reminded him of something-not a kiss, but something more awful, something else in his mouth, inside of him, that he couldn’t bear to think about. He picked aggressively at the scab on his arm until blood stained his fingernails, and then he continued, unable to shake the rhythm. He couldn’t see the damage in the dark, but he could feel blood coating his fingertips, and the skin surrounding the cut was raw and sticky, picked clean by his grubby fingernails. It hurt, but not as bad as the cut had originally, and the dull burn eventually lulled him into a restless sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just getting progressively more horrible so I apologize for torturing the children but I feel it's at least in the spirit of the show  
> Enjoy, I guess?

Charlie rushed to the bathroom upon waking up, prior to making his way downstairs. The cut on his arm (more of a gaping wound at this point) stung like hell, and he feared he’d done serious damage to it overnight. It was sticky with blood and pus, and easily as big as if not bigger than it had been at the beginning. He winced as he rinsed half-dried blood off his arm and stuck a band-aid onto the wound. As soon as he put the band-aid on, he was already tempted to pick at it, but at least that wouldn’t lead him to re-open his scab.

Suddenly, he was distracted from the dull burn of the cut to a harsh pain in his stomach. He tried to tell himself it was just hunger or food poisoning or something, but the blood staining his pajama pants begged to differ. Fighting the urge to scream, Charlie collapsed on the tile floor, staring up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the awful feeling in his stomach and between his legs. This was probably his least favourite thing about being himself. On top of all the bullying, alienation, and abuse, there was one week out of every month that he was cursed to feel even more horrible.

Eventually he couldn’t hold it in anymore and let out a scream. It was loud and high pitched, and it ended in crying. Charlie cursed himself for it, knowing that it would attract attention from his mother, but he just couldn’t help it. Everything just sucked so much.

Before long, he heard the telltale pounding of his mother knocking on the bathroom door, probably fearing that her son had fallen on the tile and cracked his head open or something to that effect. He opened the door reluctantly, and his mother scooped him up, practically in tears as she desperately asked if he was okay.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Charlie muttered. “I’m just… a little sick, is all.”

“You don’t have a fever,” his mother replied, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Charlie?”

“No! I’m… I’m just…” He was too ashamed to admit the truth. It felt gross. Anything that happened below the waist felt gross to talk about with his mother, but this was probably one of the worst. “I don’t feel good.”

“Charlie, you need to talk to Mommy, okay?”

Charlie cringed. His mom was doing that voice that you do when you talk to little kids. She always did that voice with him, even when Mac was around. It was dumb and embarrassing.

“It’s embarrassing!” Charlie grumbled. He went to push past his mom, but she blocked the doorway. Charlie was still small enough in stature that this was possible, and he figured he always would be.

“Aww, you’re having your girl time, aren’t you?”

Charlie felt like throwing up.

“I told you to stop calling it that,” he said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “I’m not a girl.”

“I know, sweetheart,” his mother sighed, stroking his hair like a kitten’s.

“Then _why-_ ” Charlie cut himself off. He didn’t want to make this day any more painful by getting in a fight with his mother.

“You know how to take care of it, right?” his mother asked.

“I’ve been doing this for years, Mom. I’ve figured it out by now.”

Charlie grumbled again as his mother shut the bathroom door, leaving him alone in the bathroom. He lied on the bathroom floor for a while, not having the energy to really do anything. For a moment he considered asking his mother if he could stay home, spending the day sobbing silently in bed and avoiding the unfairness of the world. But then he considered the fact that his mother would likely spend the day attempting to care for him, and he decided that it wasn’t worth the humiliation.

He walked to school in silence, kicking rocks down the sidewalk along the way. Mac walked next to him, babbling about something or other, ignoring Charlie’s aggressive game of rock-football. That is, until Charlie kicked him in the back of the leg, and he instantly switched gears.

“Come on, man!” he practically shouted. “What’s with you?”

“I… I didn’t mean to,” Charlie muttered in reply.

“Watch where you’re going, dude.”

“I...I’m...I’m sorry…” Charlie sputtered, barely able to get words together. He stopped in his tracks, sinking to the ground, tears falling down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

“Charlie, hey,” Mac said softly, sinking to his level. “I know you didn’t mean to. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie repeated.

“Dude, is everything okay? You’re kinda freaking out on me here.”

“It’s… it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Is this about what happened with Dennis yesterday?”

Charlie gulped. He’d forgotten. Or at least the memory had blended into all the other horrible thing that he’d been subjected to.

“Uh… maybe,” he replied.

“Look, dude,” Mac said softly. “Dennis is sick. He’s a sick person, and I’m not gonna let him hurt you again. Okay?”

Charlie nodded, still refusing to look at Mac. When he really thought about it, nothing seemed to be going right. It was all awful, everything hurt like hell and he couldn’t bear to think about any of it.

“Hey Mac?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, man?”

“How do you know that Dennis can’t hurt me? Or… or Nightman. How do you know he’s not going to come back and hurt me again?”

“Charlie…” Mac had no response. He didn’t know. And even worse, he felt like it would probably be the other way around. It scared him, really, because he knew that more than likely, one of the people who had hurt Charlie before was bound to do so again. Charlie was just so vulnerable, he was like a baby brother to Mac, and Mac had no real way of protecting him. And that hurt.

“Do you think…” Charlie continued, his voice practically a whisper. “Do you think Dennis wants to do things to me?”

“Things… like…”

“You know. Do you think he wants to…” Charlie trailed off, seemingly unable to speak the words. He was disgusted by those words, the mere thought of them nearly made him gag. To imagine someone, even Dennis, doing something like that to him was horrific.

“If he tries anything, I’ll stop him. I promise,” Mac assured him. It wasn’t good enough, and they both knew it. Mac wanted so badly to protect Charlie, but he never really could.

Charlie kept his head down as he walked into class, not really wanting to make eye contact with anyone, especially not Dennis. He felt sick to his stomach in more ways than one, and he really just wanted to lay on the floor and go to sleep.

He managed to avoid any human contact by lying his head on his desk, waiting for something to happen. As soon as class began, he ducked out to the bathroom without even asking to go. No one stopped him, and he wandered down the hall, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, fiddling with the lid to a glue bottle with his thumb and forefinger. Charlie took up his position in the bathroom stall, sat in the corner, and opened the glue.

It felt so good to huff again. It made him realise that he hadn’t used his glue in the past few days, and apparently he needed it badly. He practically shoved his nose into the bottle and took a few long, deep breaths, feeling his fingertips tingle as the fumes coursed through him. A sleepy, sickly, lightheaded feeling overtook him, and it felt good. All he’d felt the last few days was pain, a weight pressing down on top of him and something eating him from the inside out at the same time. Now he felt disconnected, freed ever so briefly from the body being subjected to such abuse. He breathed in the sickly-sweet glue fumes until he felt like passing out. And he almost did-he leaned against the wall of the bathroom, shut his eyes, and tried desperately to ignore the cramps in his stomach and the spiral of terrifying thoughts in his head. He just wanted out. He just wanted to be somewhere else, some _one_ else.

“Charlie? Is that you in there?”

Charlie jumped at the voice and the sudden knocking on the stall door. It didn’t sound like a teacher, but he wasn’t paying enough attention to figure out exactly who it was.

“Wh-What’s going on?” he asked timidly, clutching the glue in his hands.

“It’s Dennis. I wanna talk to you.”

Charlie started to sweat.

“Uh… why?”

“Because… I feel bad for what I did. And I’m sorry. And I want you to know that… it wasn’t you, I don’t know why I did it, I just needed something and I’m not even sure what it was and I’m sorry I ended up hurting you.”

Charlie thought about that for a brief moment before standing up and opening the stall door, still holding the glue in his other hand. Dennis stood before him, arms wrapped in bandages, sunken eyes looking down at him expectantly. He really did look sick, although that probably wasn’t the way Mac meant it.

“Can I sit with you?” Dennis asked softly.

“Like, in the bathroom?”

“Where else?”

“Promise you won’t pull anything?”

“Charlie, oh my god, I’d never do anything like that to you ever again, are you kidding?”

“Fine,” Charlie agreed, letting Dennis into the stall and sitting back down in the corner. Dennis locked the door and sat down next to him, keeping a good few inches between them That just seemed sensible after everything that happened.

“You’re huffing glue again,” Dennis commented.

“Your arms are gross again,” Charlie retorted.

“They’re always gonna be gross. They just sting a little more today. Besides, I wrapped them. It’s not like you can see.”

“Still. It’s nasty.”

“What’s that band-aid on your arm? I thought your cut was starting to heal.”

“It was. I picked it open.”

“I knew you’d do something like that.”

“It wasn’t like that! I’m not hurting myself like you! It was just itchy and then I lost track of what my hands were doing. I didn’t mean to pick it open.”

“Can I… can I see?”

“Why? So you can fuel your weird fantasy about me hurting myself?”

“No! I just wanna see how bad it is, okay?”

Charlie sighed, setting down his glue and pulling off his band-aid. The sticky part had stuck to the open wound, and it hurt to pull off. Dennis gawked at the damage underneath. The cut was deep, bright red and full of blood. Even the skin around it was pink and raw where Charlie had picked at it. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

“You really did that in one night?”

“I mean, I think so.”

“Wow. That’s kind of amazing.”

“It’s just gross, man. You’re gross.”

“Whatever. Can I borrow your glue?”

Charlie was reluctant, but he rolled his eyes and handed the glue to Dennis. As he desperately tries to stick the band-aid back onto his arm, Dennis took a few long huffs of glue. He slouched down, staring at the tile floor, still wary of Dennis sitting next to him.

“Why me?” Charlie asked.

“What?”

“You needed something, I-I don’t care what it was, but you never said why you picked me.”

“I thought I told you. You just… happened to be there. Bad luck.”

“It’s nothing about me, is it? It isn’t that I’m weak or vulnerable or anything?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I mean… between you and-and _him_ , I figure it’s something.”

“Oh, dude… no, it’s not you. That was probably just bad luck too. You happened to have a gross uncle. It’s not your fault.”

“So that’s it. I just rolled the dice and landed on… major psychological damage and a lifelong dependence on glue to stop the hurt.”

“Would it make it easier to think that you were chosen for that?”

“Well… I guess not.”

Charlie felt himself tearing up. He snatched the glue back from Dennis and took another hit, hoping to suppress the feeling.

“So you don’t think that librarian chose you because of your looks or something?” Charlie asked. “That seems like something you’d do.”

“That’s different,” Dennis argued. “Little kids all look the same. Plus, like, he lived with you. I was special. I was chosen.”

“Aren’t you worried someone else will choose you?”

“Nah. With my good looks, I’m pretty much gonna have my pick when it comes to partners. It’s worth the risk.”

Charlie rolled his eyes.

“Plus, it was worse for you. Probably hurt more.”

Charlie nodded. The glue couldn’t hold back his tears any longer, and he buried his face in his knees and started crying. Of course it hurt. It had hurt so much he could barely sit down, and he could still feel that awful, awful pain when he thought back on it. It wasn’t the most painful thing he’d ever experienced. Plenty of injuries had hurt more than that. But it was the memory of it all, the claustrophobic feeling and the sickening sensation all flooding back at once that made the pain seem a thousand times worse.

“Charlie… it’s okay, man. You’re okay.”

Dennis cautiously rested a hand on his shoulder. Charlie didn’t brush it away, instead moving closer to Dennis for comfort.

“It hurt so much, dude,” he whimpered. “You wouldn’t… there’s no way you could know. It was just scary and horrible and… I don’t wanna think about it.” Charlie took another huff of glue in a futile attempt to push the thoughts back into his head. He was already crying uncontrollably, and his thoughts were wandering to awful places, so the glue did little to help him.

“I don’t wanna feel like this anymore,” he whispered, leaning his head right between the wall and Dennis’ shoulder. Dennis put an arm around him.

“Me neither,” Dennis replied.

“You’re right though. It was so much worse for me. I feel so… so _sick_ , man. Like I can’t breathe.”

“I…” Dennis had nothing more to add. What happened to him was abhorrent, sure, but he had been older. More mature. He took it well. Charlie was just so young, so small and helpless and impressionable. He had no chance of ever being normal after what happened to him. He had nothing to gain. It was just going to suck a whole lot for his whole life.

“It still hurts sometimes, you know,” Charlie added. “I mean, I think. It might just be my imagination, but I… I feel things. I can’t get them out of my head, I feel so sick and… hurt, but I can’t fix it.”

“Maybe you should kill yourself.”

Charlie rolled his eyes.

“Not helping.”

“I’m serious. I mean, you’re, er… not quite right in the head. You’re a tranny, you can’t read, and you’re constantly gonna be suffering because of this thing that happened to you. What do you have?”

“I don’t wanna go to Hell, though.”

“Say you didn’t go to Hell for it. Would you?”

“I… no. You’re… you’re not serious, you’re just thinking about me cutting my arms again, aren’t you.”

“No, man. I just think, yknow, if you wanted to stop hurting all the time. I could help you.”

“You’re threatening to kill me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what would happen afterwards.”

“You wouldn’t have to think about what happened to you. You wouldn’t have to be in pain.”

Charlie thought about it for a moment.

“That knife’s too short to kill someone with. You’d have to use your hands.”

“Stabbing you to death with that thing wouldn’t be as painful as beating you to death.”

“Stabbing’s messy though. Just choke me or something.”

“You really wanna do this right now?”

“Why wait, man? I should’ve done this years ago.”

“Okay. Just… lay your head on me or something so I can grab your neck.”

Charlie scooted in front of Dennis and rested his head on his chest. Dennis tentatively wrapped a hand around his neck. The touch felt nice. Even the gentle pressure as he tested his strength was comforting. Dennis added his second hand and clamped his grip tight.

Charlie gasped. It didn’t hurt, per se, but it felt awful. His lungs ached as he tried to breathe through the stranglehold Dennis had around his neck. Dennis’ hands were surprisingly strong, and Charlie could practically feel his neck bruising beneath those dainty little fingertips. Eventually he got lightheaded, which distracted him a bit from the burning in his chest. A wave of cloudiness washed over him, and before he knew it he’d passed out in Dennis’ lap.

Dennis eased up on Charlie’s neck a few moments after the boy had fallen into his lap. After giving it one more good squeeze for good measure, Dennis let him go, figuring the job was done. Charlie’s eyes were shut, his lips were a sickly shade of purple, and there was no breath coming from his open mouth. Dennis knew he should have felt something. The situation was so incredibly wrong, so tragic, but he was calm. He ran a hand through Charlie’s soft, greasy hair. He fought off the urge to kiss the dead boy in his lap.

“Goodnight, sweet prince,” Dennis sighed, taking one last look at Charlie’s round, freckled face. “You were a nasty little shit, but you still would’ve looked hot as hell full of stab wounds.”

And then Dennis realised something.

Charlie was already dead. He couldn’t argue anymore. If Dennis wanted to fill him with holes, nothing was stopping him.

He pulled the knife from his pocket and slid it tentatively over Charlie’s clothed chest. He’d never really stabbed before, he didn’t know what parts bled the prettiest, he’d have to think about this.

Cautiously, he raised the knife just above Charlie’s stomach. The throat or chest would probably bleed more, but he felt like he needed a bit of a warm-up before aiming for the more bony areas. He moved his blade up and down over and over, building up the courage to actually use it.

The blade came down into Charlie’s thigh. Of course Dennis had gotten sweaty palms and missed his mark, but the result was still satisfying. Charlie had decently sized thighs for a boy of his stature, so the knife went in almost all the way before meeting any obstruction. The bloodstain was respectable too: when Dennis pulled out the knife, a spurt of blood instantly soaked into the front of his right pant leg, leaving a good sized red mark there.

Then Dennis heard a choking noise. Then a gasp, then a scream.

“I told you not to stab me!”

Dennis was shocked as Charlie rose, sitting unsteadily on the bathroom floor and examining the damage done to his leg. The knife was indeed quite small, so the wound probably wasn’t life-threatening, but it hurt like hell.

“You… you were dead,” Dennis insisted. “I killed you.”

“I told you about the mess!” Charlie exclaimed, ignoring his confusion. “These pants are ruined.”

“Oh my God, I killed you.”

“No you didn’t, man. I’m right here.” Charlie winced, rubbing the spot on his jeans above his stab wound. “And I’m much more worried about this stab wound than me choking for a few seconds. Also, come on, man, you gotta hold onto someone for a lot longer than that to choke them out. I could’ve held my breath for that long.”

“I… I thought you were dead,” Dennis rambled on. “I never would’ve stabbed you if I knew you’d still feel it.”

“So then why’d you do that?”

“I thought you were dead. I just wanted to see what you’d look like.”

“Well? Are you impressed?” Charlie was audibly exasperated, sweating profusely and clutching his thigh in pain. Blood seeped between his fingers.

“I dunno. That looks bad, man. How about you wait here and I’ll get you some bandages? I think I have some in my bag.”

“Of course you do. Cutter.”

“I’m trying to save your life, man.”

“You tried to kill me!”

“You asked me to!”

“Just… just get the bandages, okay? I think it’s really starting to bleed.”

“Okay, man. Try not to move around too much.”

Charlie sat on the tile floor and breathed heavily as he waited for Dennis to return. The wound on his thigh hurt like hell. It was deep, much deeper than a cut, and it felt a lot different. Not stinging like a cut, but more like something was burrowing into the muscle of his leg, gnawing mercilessly on his thigh. It was horrible. He half wished Dennis had managed to kill him before plunging the knife into him. At least then he wouldn’t have had to deal with this pain.

Dennis returned a few minutes later carrying a roll of bandages. They looked to be the same kind he had wrapped around his own arms, which was to be expected. He sat down next to Charlie, and looked quizzically at the hole in Charlie’s pants and thigh.

“You know you’re gonna have to take your pants off so I can bandage your leg, right?” he said.

Charlie rolled his eyes. Dennis was right: the wound was high enough on his thigh that he wouldn’t be able to access it by rolling up his jeans. It occurred to Charlie that this was probably Dennis’ plan all along.

“I… I don’t want to,” he said quietly.

“Charlie, come on. I promise I won’t do anything. I just don’t want you to die, okay?”

“Fine,” Charlie muttered, undoing the button on his pants. He unzipped his fly and pulled his waistband down ever so slightly, revealing pale pink underwear with bright red hearts all over it. Charlie hated himself. Why did this have to happen during the one week of the month he couldn’t wear normal underwear?

It took all of Dennis’ willpower to not comment on Charlie’s pink and red panties. It took twice that amount of willpower to not stare.

“Just get it over with,” Charlie grumbled, turning his head away from Dennis. The other boy was staring intently at his terrible underwear. He could only imagine what other information Dennis was taking in from the display-maybe it was Charlie’s thighs, or his stomach, or what was beneath the awful panties. Any of those options would have disgusted Charlie to no end. He lifted his knee so his thigh was above the ground, hissing under his breath at the pain of moving it. Blood dripped down his thigh and stained his underwear, a deep pool of red which merged with the printed hearts. At least if he ruined them, he’d have an excuse to get some less atrocious panties.

Charlie flinched away as Dennis placed a hand on his knee. It hurt, of course, but he also couldn’t help thinking about just where Dennis’ hands were going, how close they were to certain places, how strange and wrong it felt to have anyone’s hands there. Dennis reached his other hand over Charlie’s leg, brushing his hand over his inner thigh and pulling the bandage around his thigh. Charlie shook as he wrapped the wound, tears welling up in his eyes from the pain and discomfort. The touch felt so wrong. Even though Dennis was keeping his hands where they were supposed to be, Charlie still felt an indescribable fear deep within him.

“Alright. That should be good.”

Charlie hugged his knees to his chest, breathing heavily. The bandages were wrapped tightly around his thigh, and the stab wound hurt as much as ever, but at least blood had stopped dripping onto the tile and his clothes. He stood up, pulled his jeans back up, and braced himself against the bathroom wall.

“Told you you’d make a mess,” he muttered, staring down at the drops of blood on the floor.

“It’s not that bad,” Dennis argued. “Let’s just go. Hopefully no one notices.”

“Fine.” Charlie made his way to the door, stumbling and limping as he went. Dennis reached for his hand, and Charlie reluctantly took it. He had to lean on Dennis for support, and even touching him felt disgusting, but it was the only thing preventing him from collapsing from pain.

“I’m sorry I had to touch you,” Dennis whispered. “I know-”

“Shut up. Don’t-don’t even talk about it.” Charlie turned away from him, partially to hide his tears and partially to avoid looking him in the eyes.

He could barely look at Mac when he and Dennis walked back into the classroom. Mac noticed Charlie’s limp almost immediately, and stared at Dennis as if he wanted to kill him. Charlie slumped into a chair next to Mac, and Mac practically pounced on him with concern.

“Oh shit, Charlie, oh my god, are you okay? What did he do? Oh, god, did he-”

“I-I’m fine, Mac,” Charlie muttered.

“Charlie, dude… please tell me he didn’t do something to you.”

“No, I’m okay.”

“You were limping on the way in. You look like you’re hurt. Just… it has to be something. Oh god, Charlie, he didn’t… he didn’t rape you, did he?”

“What? No, man! I swear, he didn’t do anything! I’m okay! I’m just… I’m having cramps is all.” Technically the last part wasn’t a lie, but Charlie didn’t dare tell Mac about Dennis stabbing him. He was actually scared that Mac might kill Dennis if he knew.

“Oh. Well… hope you feel better, man.”

“Thanks,” Charlie muttered. He slumped down in his desk, running a hand over his blood-stained jeans. His thigh ached, and it definitely wasn’t helped by the very real cramps in his stomach.

He had to lean on Mac as they walked between classes, and all the way home. It hurt like hell, but at least Mac was sweet about it. He held Charlie close, gripping his hand tightly. Mac was gentle and safe, quite unlike Dennis, and Charlie enjoyed being close to him.

Once he got home, however, he no longer had Mac to lean on, so he quickly fell to the ground in the doorway. Despite his best attempts to fall quietly, he hit the floor with a crash, and his mother came running to see what had happened. Unlike Mac, she immediately noticed the blood down the front of his pants.

“Oh, Charlie, look what you did to your pants!” she exclaimed, grabbing his hand and lifting him up off the ground. “You know I would have helped you if you asked.”

“I… oh,” Charlie muttered, thankful at the very least that his mother hadn’t assumed the worst. “Sorry.”

“Come on, gingerbread man,” his mother sighed, pulling him towards the stairs. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Charlie felt like throwing up. He’d been touched enough for the day, he couldn’t stand any more humiliation.

“I can handle it myself.”

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay. I know you need help sometimes, just let Mommy help you, okay?”

“No!” Charlie exclaimed. “I’m not a little kid anymore! I don’t need you to bathe me like a child!”

“Don’t raise your voice with me.”

“I-I’m sorry, Mom. I just… can I please do it myself?” Not only did Charlie not want to be touched any more, he also didn’t want to risk his mother seeing the bandaged wound on his thigh.

“Fine. If you don’t need me, I won’t help you.”

“Thank you!”

Charlie limped upstairs to his room, pulled off his clothes, and changed into pajamas. He didn’t take off his bandages-he had nothing to re-wrap the wound with, and nowhere to put the bloodied bandages. Instead, he stayed in his room, clutching his is wounded thigh and crying in his bed. It hurt so much, he hated it. He didn’t even blame Dennis-hell, he’d asked Dennis to kill him. Dennis thought he was dead. Why should he have cared?

He wished Dennis would have killed him. If he had, he wouldn’t have had to suffer through such pain. And more importantly, he wouldn’t have to live in fear of being touched anymore.

His whole life was painful. Everything hurt, and nothing made it better. Charlie cried loudly, curled up on his bed in the fetal position. Evidently, his mother was still offended at not being allowed to bathe him, so she never came in to check on him. So he was forced to lay in bed and suffer alone, as usual. As he always would.


	7. Chapter 7

Charlie was, at the very least, able to walk when he woke up the next morning. He still hurt everywhere he had the previous day, but it was nice to know his leg wasn’t getting any worse.

Mac held his hand on the way to school again. Both of them were in strong agreement that it wasn’t gay, Charlie just needed help walking, but it was also just very nice to walk hand in hand. Charlie enjoyed the safe feeling of having Mac’s big, soft hand wrapped around his own, and Mac enjoyed keeping Charlie close to him, protecting him from harm and feeling the warmth of his body as he leaned on Mac’s shoulder. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, they always had, Charlie’s face buried in Mac’s shoulder and Mac resting his head on Charlie’s. It was perfect. It felt right.

So long as they kept it platonic, at least.

Mac was considering asking Charlie about the origin of his limp (no way this was just cramps, something must have happened to him), but he couldn’t bring himself to. He just didn’t want to risk hurting Charlie by bringing it up. Right now, it was just important to keep him safe.

Even though his leg still throbbed, Charlie was starting to feel a little better thanks to Mac’s kindness.

Dennis, on the other hand, was feeling much worse.

He had blood on his hands. Quite literally, in fact. He’d strangled Charlie, stabbed him, tried to kill him. And in the moment, it hadn’t even felt bad. There was this rush of power, knowing he had this boy’s life in his hands, and he could end it at any moment. It had felt good. The power was comforting to him.

It was really a terrifying thought, knowing that what made him feel good was holding someone else’s life in his hands. Dennis knew it was wrong to want to hurt someone, kill them even. He never would. He wouldn’t be capable of it. But when he saw Charlie that morning, there was an undeniable desire within Dennis to beat him bloody.

Charlie limped into class, leaning on Mac for support. It made him look so vulnerable, so utterly defenceless. If Dennis wanted to, he could physically do awful, awful things to him. Only his sliver of a conscience was keeping him from doing so.

“Feeling any better, Charlie?” he asked as Charlie sat down behind him.

“I guess,” Charlie muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Dennis whispered, just loud enough for Charlie to hear.

“It’s cool, man.”

“Are you sure?”

“I need more bandages. I’m gonna try and re-wrap it. You got any?”

“Yeah, I can get you some. Just meet me in the bathroom before next period.”

“Okay.”

Charlie was, of course, in a lot of pain. Between his leg and his stomach and the still stinging wound on his wrist, he could barely focus on whatever he was supposed to be working on in class. He needed painkillers. Maybe Dennis had painkillers. Or maybe Mac did, what with his whole drug dealer thing.

Charlie limped over to Mac as soon as the bell rang, intending to use him as a crutch on the way to his meeting with Dennis.

“I promised Dennis I’d meet him in the bathroom,” Charlie explained.

“You gotta stop meeting him in the bathroom,” Mac replied. “He’s gonna do something to you, man.”

“He’s not, I swear! He’s getting me bandages.”

“Why do you need bandages?”

“Uh.” Charlie realised his mistake. Mac couldn’t know what Dennis did to him. Charlie really did like Dennis.

“Charlie, you told me he didn’t hurt you.”

“Not exactly. He let me borrow his knife and I… I hurt myself.”

“Oh, man… you wouldn’t do that.”

“I’m sorry, Mac! I was just having a really bad day, I was off my glue for a while and I was having so many bad thoughts and I thought it might help.”

“Dude, you can’t do that!”

“I know. It’s a sin and I shouldn’t or whatever. I’m already going to Hell for something someone else did to me. I don’t care anymore.”

“Charlie, no… no, that’s not what I meant at all. I meant you can’t do that because… I hate seeing you hurt like this.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course, dude! It hurts me so much to see you in this much pain. I want you to be okay. I care about you.”

“Mac… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, dude. Let’s get you some bandages.”

Mac ran his fingers through Charlie’s hair as the two walked together. It was a welcome touch, gentle and loving, and Charlie nuzzled his face into Mac’s shoulder as Mac played with his hair. He felt so safe.

When Mac and Charlie entered the bathroom, Dennis was leaning against the wall, looking as sickly as ever. He was holding a roll of bandages, staring vacantly towards the doorway. He barely even noticed when Mac and Charlie entered.

“Sweet! You got bandages!” Charlie remarked. He walked over to Dennis and held out his hands, expecting Dennis to hand him the bandages. Dennis ignored him.

“Can I… can I have them?” Charlie asked, tapping the roll of bandages. Dennis pulled it to his chest, blushing. It was barely noticeable what with his anemic-looking skin, but he was clearly ashamed of something.

“I thought I could put them on you again,” Dennis answered shyly.

“Uhh… I dunno about that, man.”

“I can keep an eye on him while he does it,” Mac offered.

“Well… I think I can do it myself,” Charlie replied.

“Dude, no, what if you hurt yourself again?” Mac objected.

“Seriously, I’ll be fine.”

“I dunno. I just think maybe you could use the help-”

“ _No!_ ” Charlie shouted. “I don’t need your help! I don’t need anyone’s help! I’m sick of everyone holding my hand like I’m some stupid baby, ‘cause I’m not! I swear I’m not! I can bandage my own goddamn leg and I can bathe myself and feed myself and I’m gonna learn to read when I want to learn to read! And you can’t stop me!”

Mac and Dennis stared at him in shock. Clearly Charlie was shouting at someone other than them, but by now he was red-faced and spitting with anger, and Mac was starting to fear being bitten.

“Charlie, buddy, it’s cool,” he said softly. “You can do this yourself if you want. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s… it’s okay, Mac,” Charlie replied, backing away somewhat. “Not your fault.” He took the bandages from a noticeably shaken Dennis and slipped into the stall to fix himself up.

It hurt to pull the bandages off the open wound. Blood had dried and caked onto them, sticking them to Charlie’s leg. He had to force back cries of pain as he tore the bandages away, revealing an ugly, scabbing wound beneath. At least it didn’t look infected (thank God), but there was still the odd drop of blood popping out occasionally. He wrapped only a couple layers of bandages around the wound, not wanting to waste them or have any difficulty pulling his pants up. Mac immediately held out a hand to him once he limped out of the stall, hands smeared with blood.

“That bad, huh?” Mac asked, looking pointedly at the blood on Charlie’s fingertips.

“It’s alright,” Charlie shrugged. He rejected Mac’s hand and went to wash off in the sink. This involved him leaning over the sink awkwardly in order to steady himself, and his shirt and pants were partially soaked in the process.

“I mean, that knife went pretty deep. You might have nerve damage or something,” Dennis added.

“Dude, I don’t care. Nerve damage means it hurts less. That’s good.”

“How the hell do you know what nerve damage is?”

Charlie shrugged, leaning against the wall and drying his hands with a wad of paper towels.

“How do you know how deep he cut himself?” Mac asked Dennis.

“Cut himself? That’s not from cutting himself, unless he did more later.”

Charlie’s heart jumped. Mac couldn’t know. He couldn’t. No way was Dennis going to tell him.

“What’s it from, then?”

“He… he asked me to kill him. I tried that after I choked him out. Neither really worked that well.”

“What? Bullshit!” Mac exclaimed. “He’s not suicidal. He’s not stupid. You must’ve just knifed him, you bastard!”

“Mac, he’s not lying!” Charlie whined. “I had a bad day. I… I don’t even know what I was thinking. But like… you know how it is. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier to just die.”

“You know you can’t do that, man. It’s a sin, and like-”

“You know what Mac? I don’t care! I don’t care if I go to Hell, I don’t care if you miss me. It’s not up to you! I went through bad shit, and if I wanna get away from that I’m gonna do it any way I can!” He began walking towards the bathroom door, practically bracing himself against it as he opened it to leave.

“And fuck you if you think you can stop me!”

Then he stumbled out, leaving Mac to stare at the closed bathroom door in disbelief.

“He’ll be fine,” Dennis whispered. “Unless he manages to find a knife lying around in the hallway, he won’t do anything.”

“You know what? Fuck you, Dennis.”

“Excuse me?”

“He was gonna kill himself. Not only were you gonna let him, you were gonna kill him!”

“He never would’ve gone through with it.”

“You don’t know that. Dude… I’m worried about him. He’s kinda like, really messed up. You never know what he’s gonna do.”

“I told you. He’s not just gonna go and off himself. It doesn’t work like that.”

“He didn’t talk for days, man. He’d come to school all quiet and sensitive, like you couldn’t touch him or he’d bite you, and I was too dumb to figure out what was happening.”

“That’s not your fault. It’s not like little kids know what rape is.”

“He was my best friend, dude! He _is_ my best friend! And like, sure, I suspected there was something. But I never knew.”

“I mean, he seems okay now. He’s lived with it this long, you’ve gotta give him credit. He’s got some balls.”

“Well, no, he’s-”

“Fucking Christ, Mac. You know what I meant.”

Mac nodded.

“I love him, man. I really do love him. And like, I know I shouldn’t, but like… surely there’s an exception there, right? It doesn’t count. I’m not gay, am I?”

“Dude, you kissed _me_. That’s pretty gay.”

“I mean, I don’t love you though. Charlie… he’s… special, almost. Like he’s kinda like a brother to me, but not in a sibling way. In a way that I can’t imagine ever living without him because we’ve just been friends for so long.”

“That doesn’t have to be gay, I guess. Maybe you’re just… I dunno. Blood brothers or something.”

“But like, I also wanna kiss him again.”

“That… I mean, yeah, that’s pretty gay.”

“Sure, but it’s Charlie! Like… it’s not fully gay.”

“Two dudes kissing is pretty gay. That’s two mouths on two dudes. That’s gay.”

“What’s your point, man?”

“I guess it depends. If you just wanna get in his pants, then I guess given the circumstances it’s not that gay. But if he’s just like, a guy you really like and want to kiss?”

“Man… I couldn’t fuck him even if I wanted to. It feels wrong. Not even in a gay way, like I feel like I shouldn’t do that to him.”

“So it’s gay! Who cares? You’re literally the only person who cares, Mac. I bet if you went up to Charlie and told him you were gay for him he’d be fine with it.”

“Yeah? Wanna bet?”

“Sure! How much?”

“Uh. I have five dollars.”

“Alright, let’s do it.”

“Not right now though. I’ll ask him after school.”

“Fine.”

Mac couldn’t look at Charlie for the rest of the day. He told himself this wasn’t real, he was just doing it because of the bet, but he didn’t really believe it. Charlie was just undeniably perfect, and Mac couldn’t help but love him. Maybe it was a test from God, or a temptation from the devil, but either way Mac was failing. Whoever it was had sent a dirty, stupid, broken little man, and Mac had fallen head over heels for him.

Charlie was feeling a bit better by the end of the day. His leg didn’t hurt quite as much, and he was surprisingly calm as well. It was amazing how much having Mac and Dennis out of his business actually helped.

Of course, that calm was shattered when Mac stopped him behind the school before their walk home to tell him something. He rubbed his sweaty hands together, his face red and damp, and his mouth open as if he was attempting to force words out.

“So… uh…” he stammered, looking everywhere but at Charlie. Charlie couldn’t care less. At this point, he just wanted to go home.

“Dude, whatever it is, just spit it out,” he sighed. This only made Mac more uncomfortable, and he let off a string of unintelligible stammers before continuing in any meaningful way.

“I think I might be gay for you,” he muttered, breathing heavily as he said it.

“What?” Charlie asked.

“I’m pretty sure I love you, like in a gay way. Like I wanna kiss you again.”

“So? I don’t care. I mean, I kinda knew already.”

“Seriously, man? You just lost me five dollars.”

“What do you mean?”

“I bet Dennis five dollars you’d be freaked out if I told you I was gay for you.”

“Of course you did.”

“He’s around here somewhere, I gotta go pay him now.”

Mac walked around the corner to find Dennis standing against the wall of the school, smirking at him and holding out his hand.

“Here’s your money, asshole,” Mac grumbled, thrusting a crumbled five-dollar bill at Dennis. Dennis snatched it eagerly and shoved it in his pocket.

“You’re gonna kiss now, right?” Dennis asked.

“Ew! No. Definitely not in front of you.”

Mac was soon joined by Charlie, who seemed to be dragging him away from Dennis as he was more than ready to get home.

“I mean, it seems like he might want to,” Dennis said, eyeing Charlie.

“No, man. Don’t be gross. He just wants to go home.”

“You don’t know that. I won’t watch, trust me. Just go for it.” He put his hands over his eyes, peeking between his fingers as little as he could manage without fully obscuring his vision. Mac still didn’t cave to his whims, however.

“You’re gross, Dennis. We’re leaving.”

He followed a now very uncomfortable Charlie through the schoolyard and onto the empty, cracked street which led into their neighborhood. Charlie kept a tight grip on his hand, but refused to even look at him as they walked.

“So it was a lie,” he said.

“What was?” Mac asked.

“That you’re gay for me. That you wanna kiss me again. It wasn’t true.”

“I mean, it’s a little true. I don’t know if I’d do anything about it. Like, I definitely _want_ to kiss you again, but I know I shouldn’t.”

“I think you should,” Charlie mused.

Mac nearly stopped in his tracks.

“You don’t want that, do you?”

“I mean, I dunno. If you want it, and it would make you happy to do it, then I think you should.”

“We’re still talking about me kissing you, right?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s just a kiss. It’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? Charlie, we’re already probably going to Hell for kissing once. No way should we do it again.”

“Dude, we’re already going to hell. Why not?” He stopped walking, turned towards Mac, and grabbed his face with one hand while still holding onto his hand with the other. Mac stumbled backwards, caught off guard but not scared. Charlie was small and nonthreatening, if he actually tried anything Mac could easily escape.

“I’m… I’m really not sure about this, man.”

“God doesn’t really care about us. Think about it, man-how much did you pray as a kid for Him to let you have your dad back? He didn’t care. Or how much I prayed that-that my… uh… _Nightman_ would stop hurting me. But God still let him hurt me for years before He did anything. If He really cared, don’t you think he would’ve done something?”

“Just because bad things happened doesn’t mean God’s not real.”

“Yeah, but I think it at least means He doesn’t care. So He won’t care if I kiss you.”

“And if He did care, I mean, we’ve done it once. We’re already going to Hell.”

“Exactly. So come on, kiss me already!”

Mac sighed, bending his knees just enough so he and Charlie were about the same height. Charlie’s big, soft green eyes stared back at him, begging silently for Mac to just do something. He pecked a quick kiss onto Charlie’s freckled cheek, making Charlie blush hard.

“That’s it?” Charlie said sadly. He now stood on his tiptoes, effectively preventing Mac from avoiding his gaze. That desire still shone in his eyes-it wasn’t a hunger, there was no insistence or violence to it at all, but there was undeniably something there. Mac couldn’t leave him hanging. To do so would be depriving him of some vital life force, stealing something essential right out of his grasp. He took Charlie’s hands and leaned in to kiss him again, this time on his soft pink lips. A quiet little sound escaped Charlie’s mouth-it was a good sound, a happy sound, and it filled Mac with a sense of comfort he hadn’t had before. Charlie really was enjoying this, so he should at least try to enjoy it too, right?

Charlie was hesitant to kiss Mac back, scared of repeating the missteps of their first makeout session, but he was more comfortable once he realised he could simply press his lips to Mac’s in return. The kiss was sweet and gentle, calming in a way he’d never really experienced before, and it made him feel safe in a way he couldn’t really describe. He moved closer to Mac until their bodies were pressed together, which worried Mac a little bit initially until he realised neither he nor Charlie wanted anything more out of this. It was just a simple, sweet, tender kiss, and the closeness itself was enough.

Eventually Charlie pulled away once standing on his tiptoes started to make his feet sore. Fortunately, that was the only uncomfortable part of the experience.

“You’ve gotten better at kissing,” Mac said, blushing. “You haven’t kissed anyone besides me, have you?”

“I mean, there’s Dennis, but I dunno if that counts.”

“It shouldn’t,” Mac decided. “You didn’t ask for that shit, man.”

“So… if I didn’t want it, it doesn’t count?”

“I mean, I don’t make the rules, but it shouldn’t.”

“So what happened to me as a kid. That didn’t really happen?”

“I mean, of course it happened! It hurt you a lot, I mean, it was horrible. But it shouldn’t count against you.”

“That’s good.”

Mac held Charlie’s hand tightly as they walked home. Some sort of protective instinct always took hold of him around Charlie, some fragment of knowledge in the back of his mind that Charlie was fragile and needed to be kept safe. Safe from any harm that could possibly come to him.

“Do you maybe wanna stay over tonight?” he asked, suddenly worried at the thought of letting Charlie out of his sight.

“I dunno, man. It’s a school night. I dunno if my mom would let me.”

“Dude, you’re fifteen. You gotta stop letting your mom control you like this!”

“Just because your mom lets you go wherever you want and do drugs and stuff doesn’t mean it’s normal.”

“Okay, but like, your mom’s crazy, dude. She doesn’t even let you bathe yourself.”

“She just wants to help.”

“Maybe, or maybe she’s just crazy! She’s treating you like you’re retarded, man, and… I mean, I’m not saying your not-”

“Yeah, still don’t call me that though.”

“Sorry, man. I’m just saying, she’s treating you like some helpless little kid, but you’re not! You should be able to like… go your own way and shit.”

“She’s gonna call the cops.”

“Let her! What’re they gonna do, arrest you for kidnapping yourself?”

“Fine. I’ll come over.”

“You wanna get drunk together?”

“Sure, dude.”

“Maybe don’t microwave your pants this time.”

Charlie laughed, nodding. He squeezed Mac’s hand tight as the two finished their walk home, stepping through Mac’s front door into the smoke-filled haze of his living room. It was dark and cozy and safe. Charlie sat on the couch as Mac ran into the kitchen, grabbed two bottles of liquor, and tossed one to Charlie. Charlie took a long sip, ending in a long coughing fit.

“This shit’s strong, man,” he choked, gingerly taking another small sip.

“Nah, you’re just weak,” Mac shot back, taking a sip from his own bottle. This resulted in an equally long coughing fit, but he had a smug look on his face the whole time.

The pair took turns sipping, coughing, and exchanging smug looks until their throats burned and they felt sick to their stomachs and everything started to go a little foggy. Both boys were draped over opposite arms of the couch, trying to ignore the pain of this questionable decision for the sake of pride, figuring out just what to do next.

“I think we should make out,” Charlie slurred.

“That’s crazy, man,” Mac groaned.

“We’ve already done it once. At least. May as well just go for it, all the way, y’know?”

“What’s ‘all the way’?” Mac asked. “You mean like, _all the way?_ ”

“No, no, not sex! Gross, man! Just… chill stuff. Lay down and I’ll show you.”

Mac laid on his back on the couch, and Charlie moved to straddle him. Mac was shocked, expecting something more to happen, but Charlie simply sat on his thighs. It was innocent enough, he supposed. Just getting into a good position. Then Charlie leaned down and started kissing him, pulling him up a little by his shoulders and wrapping a hand around the back of his head so he stayed up. Mac reached up and wrapped his arms around Charlie’s shoulders, pulling him in closer. Holy shit, Charlie had learned to kiss. Gentle and careful, but firm and needy at the same time, his lips wet and pretty, running all over Mac’s face and eventually his lips with no hesitation. Mac kissed him back, trying to match his touch, but his lips just weren’t nearly as soft. Unlike Charlie, who seemed to be built for kissing and being kissed.

“Where did you learn this?” Mac whispered.

“TV,” Charlie replied matter-of-factly. Mac didn’t really believe that answer, but he didn’t care enough to break off the kiss.

Just then, the pair heard the doorknob turn, and the door clicked open. Mac tried to move, but Charlie sitting on him was pinning him down, and Charlie seemed to be frozen and unable to move. Both of them were sweating, terrified of whoever just walked in.

Mac’s mom stepped through the door, took one look at the two boys on the couch, and walked right back out.

Charlie shrugged, laughed, and continued kissing Mac.

“Dude,” Mac sighed, allowing Charlie to continue kissing his neck as he spoke. “She totally saw us. Oh, shit.”

“So? If she cared, she would’ve said something. It’s cool, man.”

“No, no, this is crazy. You’re like… practically riding me, dude. We can’t do this.”

“Ew! Fuck you, man, this isn’t horny! Now you made it weird.”

“Good. It is.”

“No! Not weird. We’re teenagers. Teenagers are supposed to make out.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s weird.”

“Is it weird ‘cause it’s me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Would it still be weird if it was Dennis? Would it still be weird if I was a girl?”

“Dennis is a bad example.”

“True. What if it was… that really normal guy who sits in the front of the room in history.”

“Nah, he’s like… all _normal_.”

“You think it’s weird that I’m trans.”

“Yeah, it’s weird, but I don’t care. It’s not like I’m ever gonna fuck you or anything.”

 

“ _Why not,_ though? Is this a homophobic guilt thing or a not wanting to fuck a tranny thing?”

“I’d fuck a tranny. I wouldn’t fuck my best friend. Especially since you freak out when people touch you because you were raped. That’s two big nos right there. Plus I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.”

“Not illegal if we’re both kids. And it’s not even gay, depending on, y’know… where you stick it.”

“Ew, man! Ew! Don’t say ‘stick it’.”

“Sorry.”

“You really want me to…”

“No. Gross.”

“Thank God. I don’t want to.”

“So this is completely normal.”

“Yeah. Normal. These can be… friend kisses.”

“Don’t have to be.”

“I think… I think they should be.”

“Fine. Coward.”

Charlie kissed him again, and leaned in closer when Mac didn’t push him off. His body was warm, the closeness was so comfortable and safe and he wanted to stay sitting on Mac’s thighs like this forever. Eventually he tired out, collapsing on Mac’s chest and wrapping his arms around him. His soft hair tickled Mac’s chin, and Mac responded by burying his face in it.

“You think it’ll be okay if I fall asleep like this?”

“I think you’re crushing my lungs a little bit. My bed has a little more room. And it’s like, five.”

“Fine. Did your mom leave her credit card on the counter again? We can order a pizza.”

“She absolutely did. C’mon, man. Let’s go.”

Charlie and Mac spent the night sitting in front of the TV eating their stolen pizza. As the night went on, Charlie started to lean harder and harder on Mac’s shoulder.

“You think Dennis is okay?” Mac asked.

“That’s a weird question.”

“He seemed okay earlier.”

“Dude, I don’t wanna talk about Dennis.”

“Neither do I! He kinda sucks, dude.”

“It’s not his fault,” Charlie sighed.

“Just ‘cause something bad happened to him doesn’t mean everything he does is okay.”

“He explained this to me. He… needs. After what happened to him, he just needs to hurt people to make it feel better.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Plus, it’s no excuse. Same thing happened to you. You don’t hurt people.”

“I guess.”

“You’re not Dennis. I think… I think you’re gonna be okay.”

“You sure?”

“Hell no. But I hope it’s true.”

Charlie buried his face all the way into Mac’s side, wiping pizza grease all over his shirt sleeve. Mac didn’t care. He pulled Charlie in close, running his fingers through his soft hair. 

“You tired?” he asked.

“Mhm,” Charlie replied.

“C’mon. We can go to sleep if you’re tired.”

“Thanks, Mac. I love you.”

“Uh. I love you too.”

Charlie smiled, squeezing Mac’s hand as they walked away from the half-empty pizza boxes and the still-on TV into Mac’s bedroom. Mac’s bed was small, definitely not big enough for two people, but neither boy was willing to let that stop them. Charlie curled up in the bed, still in his jeans and t-shirt, arms wrapped tightly around Mac. It was slightly claustrophobic, but both of them were okay with it. It was okay.

Everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super happy with how quickly I wrapped this up but I really felt like I needed to give this fic some sort of ending.
> 
> Please kudos/comment if you enjoyed :)


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